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Library Research Guides

ENGWR 300 (online) - Professor Rodgers (Spring 2020): OneSearch: Books & Articles

What Should I Do on This Page?

Now that you've explored the preliminary databases and have collected some background information on your topic, it's time to begin conducting some reference research, and OneSearch is just the tool to use for that. 

The first step you should take is to watch the OneSearch in One Minute video. 

Once you've watched the video, read the information in the Search Tips section to learn a few strategies you can use when navigating OneSearch

Once you're done with those two steps, you'll be ready to dive into OneSearch. 

You can start by using the 1-3 keywords that you used in the preliminary databases, but now you can also add more relevant keywords to refine your topic (see the Search Tips box below).

If you'd like to see some of the search tips used in action, watch the Quick Tips & Shortcuts for Database Searching video (NOTE: The database used in this video may look a bit different from OneSearch, but the tools are similar).

OneSearch in One Minute Video

Quick Tips & Shortcuts for Database Searching

OneSearch

Find books, articles, ebooks and more

Search Tips

OneSearch Search Tips: 

  1. "voices from chernobyl" 
    1. Use quotation marks to search for a specific phrase.  In this example, the results will include the title of the book, as well as other sources that use that same phrase.
  2. "voices from chernobyl" alexievich
    1. This search will only include source related to the author of this specific book.

Using OneSearch Limiters:

You can limit the results you get to various types of sources (e.g. reviews, or newspaper articles, etc.).  

"Reviews" is highlighted as one of Resource Types

Genearl Search Tips:

  • 3-5 keywords often works well
  • Take advantage of the limiters inside of OneSearch
  • Try different keywords (think synonyms)

Using Parentheses: 

Use parentheses around keywords separated by the word "OR" to expand your search and get more results. 

Example: chernobyl (disaster OR accident)

In the example above, we are running two searches at once: 

chernobyl disaster AND chernobyl accident 

Using the Asterisk (*): 
Use an asterisk to shorten a word and search for all possible endings of a root word. This will give you more results

Example:  chernobyl child*

This is searching for the keyword chernobyl and the keywords: child, children, childhood, etc.