It's 2 a.m. and you just need one more peer reviewed article to submit to your instructor but you aren't having any luck and it feels like you're doomed.
No need to panic, though, we've all been in your shoes (in my case it was 4am)!
Shafer library offers access to a wide assortment of databases but the first option you'll most likely find on the library website is our OneSearch search bar. This search bar is a research tool that provides accesses ALL of our databases, journals, newspapers, books, well you get the point. OneSearch is a great place to start looking, but you might need more narrow and specialized tools like JSTOR, the Findlay book catalog, or some of our very many academic databases which you can find in the Databases list.
Here are some useful tips to make the most out of our OneSearch, and you can even use these tips on most databases as well!
- Don’t search using complete sentences, like your entire research question. Instead break your topic down into keywords.
- So instead of “How do video games impact depression in teenagers” try-
- Video Games AND Depression AND teenagers
Utilize the Refine Results options on the search results page. These will help you narrow and focus your search, so you aren't sorting through too many pages of results.
Full Text Limiter
- Limiting your results to full text will only return results that have the entire article attached as a pdf, html, or are available immediately by some other means ( a repository, open access journal, etc.). If you don't select this, some of the results you get may just be a citation for a book/article/other resource.
- Peer-Reviewed/ Scholarly (Peer Reviewed) Journals
- Oftentimes your instructor will ask for only Peer Reviewed research articles. Unlike other resources, like newspapers or blog posts that might not be written by an expert on the topic, scholarly, peer-reviewed articles are created by experts in their fields and the resource been reviewed by others for quality and importance in their field before being approved for publication. This helps academic journals provide you with cutting-edge, reliable, and verifiable research.
- Publication Date
- Depending on your research topic it might also be useful to limit by publication date.
- Resource Type
- Many databases have more than academic journal articles, so limiting by resources you need is also useful. No need to scroll through pages of book reviews when you need only journal articles!
- Mine what you find for more resources
- Resources in OneSearch, and our academic databases as a whole, provide you with a lot of information to help you on your search.
- Read through provided abstracts to make sure an article is what you're looking for or see if the author(s) provided their own keywords you can use while searching.
- Also useful is scanning an article's bibliography for it's references. If the authors used it, maybe you can to!
- Resources in OneSearch, and our academic databases as a whole, provide you with a lot of information to help you on your search.
If you need more help, take a look at our Research Process Library guide or visit us here in Shafer! You'll have found everything you need in no time!
Hello Oilers! Today we'd like to introduce you to our new library system: Ex Libris! While this system mostly works in the background, it does bring changes including Primo VE as our new OneSearch! Just like our old OneSearch, the new version provides access to resources including articles, books, e-books, journals, e-journals, and more. It also allows you to access resources provided by our consortium partners OPAL and OhioLINK!
Also, along with the new OneSearch, you can once again submit book borrowing requests. SearchOhio is still down until late fall.
We'd like to thank you for your patience as we continue to navigate these changes for the next few months. If you have any questions, please send us an email at library@findlay.edu or check out our new research guide to see how the new search engine works!