Religious and Theological Abstracts Help

Search Religious and Theological Abstracts


Religious & Theological Abstracts - On-Line Tutorial

There are two types of Searches: SIMPLE and ADVANCED

The SIMPLE SEARCH may be appropriate for many of your inquiries. Examples:

  1. Church State - finds all records containing the words "church" AND "state" [not case sensitive]
  2. "book of common prayer" - finds records with this exact phrase
  3. Gen 15 - finds records with references to Genesis 15
  4. Wildcard (*) - moral* finds: moral, morals, morality, moralist, etc.

SEARCHING TIPS:

  1. Do NOT include articles or prepositions (except in exact phrase searches) Enter: light gospel john NOT the symbol of light in the gospel of John
  2. RTA finds ALL terms in the database. A search is NOT limited to a thesaurus arbitrarily devised by an editor.
  3. Be aware of multiple ways a term might appear:
    LXX/ Septuagint; Moses/Mosaic; health care/healthcare; Koran/Qur'an;
    Common abbreviations: OT NT; USA; HIV; WCC; CPE; SBC
  4. Bible books: Use "book of Ruth"; "book of job"; "book of acts" to search entire books.

The ADVANCED SEARCH allows greater flexibility