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English

This guide is intended as a research tool for fast and easy retrieval of effective subject resources for English studies.

OneSearch

OneSearch

Search Operators

Search operators help clarify, narrow, or broaden a search. Here are tips for using them in your searches:

Quotes: ''____''

Using quotes looks for specific phrasing of words. Quotes can be very useful for searching titles. For example, searching for "The Color Purple" looks for instances where those words are next to each other.

Boolean Operators: AND, OR, NOT

These narrow or broaden a search. Using all-caps in OneSearch is important; you'll get different results by using lowercase.

Puppy AND Kitten  --- Returns instances where both "puppy" and "kitten" are mentioned in the record

Puppy OR Kitten  --- Returns instances where either "puppy" or "kitten" are mentioned in the record

Puppy NOT Kitten --- Returns instances of the word "puppy", but not where "kitten" is included in the record

Image is decorative / repeats information from text

Created by the librarians at Northwest Arkansas Community College Library. See their guide for other search hacks: http://library.nwacc.edu/search-hacks/home

Wildcards: ?, *

Wildcards can be used to allow for multiple characters in a word. You use a wildcard operator to replace a character in a word, or a word ending.
 
Single character wildcards: ?

Example: wom?n = women or woman

Multi-character wildcards: *

Example: explain* = explained, explaining, explains

Citation Styles

There are many different citation styles that are used in academic writing. Typically your professor will let you know the preferred citation style for their class and/or your discipline. Below you will find a table of four common citation styles, followed by a list of less-common citation styles:

The Purdue OWL. Purdue U Writing Lab, 2010. Web.

Citation Styles

When to Use Them

More Info at Purdue University Online Writing Lab (OWL)

Example Paper
MLA- Modern Language Association Literature and the humanities MLA Formatting & Style Guide MLA Example Paper
APA- American Psychological Association Psychology, Business, Criminology, Economics, Education, and Sociology

APA Style Guide (American Psychological Association)

 APA Sample Paper
Chicago Humanities, history and social sciences Chicago Style & Formatting Guide Chicago Sample Paper
Chicago-Turabian Humanities, history, social sciences and natural sciences (often selected when people do not know which style to use) Chicago-Turabian Style & Formatting Guide Chicago-Turabian Sample Paper