Search Tips

Use quotes to search for exact phrases. The search below will only return results that include the specific words "social media" in that order:

Without the quotes, OneSearch would return results that include "social media" as an exact phrase, but it would also return results that include these terms, but not necessarily in that order, so they may not refer to "social media" platforms like TikTok or Instagram.

An advantage of the library OneSearch platform and databases is the ability to choose where in the results your search terms appear.

You can specify that you want your search terms in the title of the result to get more relevant results by choosing "Title" in the dropdown to the left of the OneSearch bar:

You can also choose the title or other specific fields by going to "Advanced Search" and choosing the field there:

Just like with online shopping sites, research databases usually enable you to filter results for more precision.

In OneSearch, our library's main search tool, you can filter by the following options:

• Availability: Limit to results Queens has immediate access to
• Scholarly & Peer-Reviewed: Limit results to items from academic journals that review materials before publishing them
• Publication Date: Limit results to a specific date range
• Content Type: Limit results based on format (academic journal article, newspaper article, books, streaming video, etc.)
• Discipline: Limit results to specific academic fields (psychology, chemistry, history, economics, etc.)
• Subject Terms: Limit to results that have been categorized under specific topics
• Database: Choose what database to view results from
• Language: Limit results to a specific language

In OneSearch and most databases, these filter options appear on the left side of the search results page. You can toggle these options on or off with the arrow at the top of the highlighted box:

OneSearch offers many other advanced features to get more refined results, including:

• Searching for alternate spellings of terms
• Specifying fields to search (ex: title, abstract, author, etc.)
• Searching for terms that appear within a certain distance of each other
• And more...

To learn to use advanced search features in OneSearch, check out OneSearch's Advanced Search guide or ask a librarian.