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Library Research Guides

ENGWR 300 - Professor Spurgeon (Fall 2024): Finding Sources

OneSearch

OneSearch Los Rios Libraries

Find books, articles, ebooks and more

OneSearch is exactly what its name implies: one place to search for many different kinds of sources -- including books, eBooks, scholarly articles, news articles, videos, and more!

OneSearch in One Minute

Canvas Research Tutorials

 

If this is the first time you have encountered OneSearch or want to brush up on your skills, check out the Library's Canvas Research Tutorials - OneSearch Basics module! On average, each lesson takes about 30 minutes.

Search Tricks in OneSearch

Use the search tips below to improve your results:

General Search Tips:

  • 3-5 keywords often works well
  • Try different keywords (think synonyms)

Parentheses: Use with the word OR to combine ideas and expand your search. 

  • EXAMPLE
  • (campus OR university OR college)

Quotation marks: Use these around your keywords for an “exact search”. This tool will give you specific (aka fewer) results because it searches for your keywords exactly as you’ve entered them. 

  • EXAMPLE:

    • "day care"

    • "social media"

    • "social connectedness" 

Asterisk * : Use this to shorten a word and search for all possible endings of the root word. This tool will give you more results.

  • EXAMPLE:

    • happ* = happy, happiness

    • manag* = manage, managing, managed

    • reduc* = reduce, reduced, reduction

OneSearch Search: putting it all together EXAMPLES

  1. Example Topic: How do basketball players train and mentally prepare themselves to advance in the NBA.
    1. Example Search in OneSearch: basketball play* NBA (conditioning OR training OR prepare)
  2. Example Topic: The effects of social media on a person's happiness
    1. Example Search in OneSearch: "social media" happ* (psyc* OR "well being")
  3. Example Topic: How are algorithms used to train AI models
    1. Example Search in OneSearch: algorithm ("artificial intelligence" OR AI) train*

Remember to take advantage of the limiters on the left of your search results to ensure you are getting current resources that you can access!

If you are not finding what you were hoping for searching in OneSearch, this is a good time to ask a librarian for help!