Oxford Reference Support: Searching and Features

Type or paste the term you want to find in the search box e.g. William Shakespeare. Putting your search term between quotation marks e.g. "William Shakespeare" will find you the exact phrase.

The matching entries are listed on the results page/s. The number of results appears at the top of the list. You can limit your search by Entries or the Books the results have been retrieved from.

The first result in the list is the Overview for the topic most closely related to your search term. There is an Overview page for every unique entry, which consists of some defining text from an Oxford Reference entry with links to related content. 

Click on name of the overview page e.g. William Shakespeare to access the unique entry with related links.

For more information see the page below.

Please note that the Advanced search mentioned is no longer available.

 Click the printer icon to print the current entry or page. A printable version is displayed in your browser which can then be printed or saved.

The save icon allows you to save the current entry or page to your folder in the personal profile. If you do not have one, use the printer icon to save the page.

Click the pencil icon to choose from the citation formats: eg  APA. The citations can be copied and pasted directly into a document. For the correct referencing style, you will need to adjust the citation to comply with TAFE NSW referencing guidelines.

 Click the letter icon to send a link. Please note that the link will not work if you are not logged in to Oxford Reference.

 Click the plus icon to share a link to the current Overview on a social bookmarking site (e.g. Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Gmail, etc.). Please note that the link will not work if you are not logged in to Oxford Reference.

Oxford University Press is committed to make its products accessible to and inclusive of all our users, including those with visual, hearing, cognitive, or motor impairments. Visit the page below to find out more.

Content from Oxford Reference is to be used for internal educational purposes and may not be shared or posted publicly online. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an individual user may print out a PDF of a single entry from a reference work in Oxford Reference for personal use (for more details see the legal notice below).

You can browse the collection by Subject or Reference type.

By subject

Click the Subject button to browse subjects ranging from archaeology to science and technology.

By reference type

Click the Reference type button to see the reference types provided.

Reference types available are:

• Overview pages (Preview only)
• Subject reference (List of all subject reference titles)
• Time lines
• Quotations
• English dictionaries
• Bilingual dictionaries (Including French, Spanish, Italian, German, Latin)

Narrowing your choices

You can narrow down the items in the Browse list using the options on the left. To toggle between displaying and hiding these options, click the appropriate arrows -  or .

For detailed information read the article below:

Please note that this video features the Advanced search which is no longer available.