CTVA 301: Media Research Methods

Your searchable topics are informed by your assignment prompt. Consider the following example using the Advanced search function in OneSearch:

• Subject ="Film adaptations" AND gothic literature 

Figure 1: Multiple Search bars

Figure 1 illustrates multiple techniques to increase the relevance of your search results by using:

• subject searching to ensure your results are reasonably ABOUT your search terms.
• the "is (exact)" function from the drop menu to ensure that multiple words are searched as a single term.
• the boolean operator "AND" to pull results that contain both sets of terms.

Figure 2: Subject terms in the catalog record

Figure 2 illustrates a catalog record produced by the subject search using the search terms "Film adaptations" and "gothic literature". Note how these terms appear in the subjects assigned to the resource, assuring that the resource is sufficiently about the search terms used in the search. 

Once your results are populated, use the filters on the left to isolate topics, resource types, peer-reviewed articles, and more.

Please consider your topics and construct a search on OneSearch that represents the intersection of all the topics invloved in your research.  In this example, I am researching the effect of disinformation from social media on politics.

My research vocabulary for these topics might look like:

• Social media, Internet, news
• Politics, punditry, elections
• misinformation, disinformation

Select one or two of these terms from each category to apply to a combination search. Note which of these are your broad topic to assign as the SUBJECT in your search. You might try swapping in different terms or changing which are the SUBJECT to achieve better or different results as needed. 

Figure 1: Sample search of the intersection of social media, politics, and disinformation.

Once you have an acceptable list of results, use the filters on left to refine your search by additinal topic, resource type (books, articals, video) or designate peer-reviewed articles only.

Figure 2: Filters to use for refining your search results