This white box, the first thing you see on the library website, can be a fascinating tool when you start exploring it in detail. You get frustrated first. Stay calm, examine it carefully and realize that you can work with it and achieve amazing results.
Many times students come to the library looking for assistance in writing research papers without having a specific topic in mind. That is when OneSearch filters can come handy.
Let’s look at the Subject/Topic filters. Those are identifiers/labels/tags that tie the avalanche of search results together and guide you through the maze so you can discover some gems in the depth of the results list instead of just picking up the first three documents from the top.
Here is an example of how a broad topic search can be fine-tuned with the assistance of Subject/Topic filters. Type in your search: capital punishment
You get half a million results. Stop (instead of scrolling down) and look for help.
Scroll down the screen looking for different filters until you see this one that you will explore further by clicking on Show More.
You have limited your initial search on a broad topic of capital punishment to a narrow one – what is college students’ attitude towards capital punishment? And your results are also limited to a manageable number that you can easily sift through.
Happy Subject discovery in OneSearch!
-Maria Kiriakova