Fast Search By Number

Use Fast Search By Number to quickly find a document by its paper number. To locate multiple documents with a single search, enter several paper numbers in the Document ID field; but be sure to separate each number with a comma followed by a space. For example, "1997-1278, 107767-MS, 12137-MS, 20990-MS", and so on.

Note: If you are unable to locate the document you seek, please check the coverage of documents in OnePetro. There are instances when a society's coverage does not yet include articles from the most recent events or publications.

Basic Search

Basic search provides an easy way to perform powerful searches within OnePetro. The single search field searches the entire OnePetro database for the keyword(s) or phrase(s) entered.   

To perform a Basic Search  

1. Enter search terms in the search field. As search terms are entered, Google Suggest will help identify and suggest words to be used for the search in real-time.
   
   


2. Click the Search button. The Search Results page displays.

Power User Tip: Boolean operators and special characters can be used in Basic search to connect words and phrases for more effective searching. See Booleans to learn more.

Advanced Search

Advanced Search offers fine-tuned search capabilities. Users can construct complex search queries by combining keywords and phrases using Boolean operators to narrow or broaden results, or limit searches to certain fields or by journal, publisher, or date.   

To perform an Advanced Search:

1. From the OnePetro Home page, click the Advanced Search tab.
2. On the Advanced Search page, enter search terms in the first Find field.
   
   
3. Select a search field from the optional Anywhere in Article drop-down list (for example, select "Title" from the dropdown to search in only the Title field).
4. Repeat step 2 for the second set of Find fields if needed.
5. Select a Boolean operator (AND, OR, NOT) to combine the two Find field entries.
6. Another Boolean operator, keyword, and search field can be entered in the third set of fields if needed.
7. Select from the other available search options to narrow the search:
   • Search Parameters - A search filter can also be applied by selecting a specific Journal and Journal Citation.
   • Limit Results By - Apply limiters by Date Range and Publisher.  
   • Sort Results By - Arrange results from "newest to oldest" or "oldest to newest".
8. Click the Search button. The Search Results page displays.
   
   

Affiliation Search

To find abstracts submitted from a specified organization, use Advanced Search and limit searching to the Affiliation field.

In some instances, the author’s affiliation may not exist in OnePetro’s database. This is because many older papers, namely those from the World Petroleum Council, do not include the author's organization.

Some searches may require multiple attempts to get the desired results. For example, in older documents the word “and” is used instead of the ampersand (&). In example, “Texas A and M” and “Arco R and D” were once heavily used. In such cases, performing the search both ways is recommended. For example, a search for Texas A&M requires searching for “Texas A&M” AND “Texas A and M”.

Author Search

Use advanced search and limit searching to the Authors field if you want to find articles by specific authors.

Author Search Tips

An author might be listed in a variety of ways (e.g., Ramey, H.J.; Ramey Jr., H.J., H.J. Ramey Jr.; Hank Ramey; Ramey, Jr., Harold). If the author has an unusual last name, just input the last name. For an author with a common last name, try entering multiple options using the AND operator.

Note: When an author name is entered, the search engine can only look for authors with that name and assume all are similarly relevant to your query. In some cases, company names are included in the same field as author; your search may return some documents not by that author.

To search for an author formatted last name first, you do not have to put the entry in quotes (e.g., Smith, G.E.; Jones, Carl), but you can do so.

In an author search using initials, spaces matter. G.E. and G. E. are not seen as the same to the Google search. [SPE's style is not to put a space between initials, but some exceptions may creep in, and other societies in OnePetro may not have the same style.] So if you are having difficulty with an author search, consider trying both with and without the spaces for initials or search for alternate forms of the author's name.

Booleans

Boolean logic is used to define logical relationships between search terms. Boolean searches combine words and phrases using the words AND, OR, and NOT (otherwise known as Boolean operators) to create a very broad or a very narrow search.  

• AND combines search terms so that each search result contains all of the terms. For example, the search Offshore Drilling and Europe finds articles that contain both "Offshore Drilling" and "Europe".
• OR combines search terms so that each search result contains at least one of the terms. For example, the search Residue Oil or Residue Gas finds results that contain either "Residue Oil" or "Residue Gas".
• NOT excludes terms so that each search result does not contain any of the terms that follow it. For example, the search Porosity not Permeability finds results that contain "Porosity" but do not contain "Permeability".

 

Boolean Logic in OnePetro

Booleans AND, OR, and NOT are supported by OnePetro's Basic and Advanced searches. While the Advanced search page offers easy to use field-searching in which to customize a query, a more-experienced user might prefer writing a Boolean expression (or Boolean query) into the Basic search box. The table below explains how to use the Boolean terms AND, OR, and NOT to craft a Boolean query in Basic search. It also provides a list of special characters and operators to help fine-tune a search.

IMPORTANT NOTE: Boolean queries should not be written on the Advanced search page, as they will not function correctly when field options are also selected. Boolean expressions are intended for Basic search only.  

Note: The * operator, used in wildcard searches on Google.com, is not a valid search character in OnePetro.

Characters	Description
Boolean AND	Use the AND operator to combine search terms to narrow results. The example below will search the exact search phrase "Offshore Drilling" and combine it with the search term "Europe". Notice the quotes around “Offshore Drilling”. The quotes are essential so that results only contain that exact phrase. Single words, such as “Europe”, do not require quotes. "Offshore Drilling" AND Europe
Boolean OR [ | ]	The OR operator and the pipe operator (|) can be used interchangeably. The below search examples return the same results. "Residue Oil" OR "Residue Gas" "Residue Oil" | "Residue Gas"
Boolean NOT [ - ]	The NOT operator Will NOT work in Basic Search. It must be replaced by the minus sign or hyphen (-) preceded by a space in order to exclude a search term. In example, Dow -chemical, searches for documents with the term “Dow” AND NOT “Chemical”.
Parentheses [ ( ) ]	To make even better use of Boolean operators, use parentheses [ ( ) ] to nest query terms within query terms. Parentheses work by evaluating all terms within the innermost set of parentheses first, then information outside parentheses is read next. For example: (Chemical OR Gas Well) AND Dow retrieves results containing the word “chemical” or the words “gas well” together and then the term “Dow”. If there are nested parentheses, the search engine processes the innermost parenthetical expression first, then the next, and so on until the entire query has been interpreted. For example, ((chemical | gas well) AND Dow) -fractured
Double Quotes [ " " ]	Use double quotes when phrase searching. For example, “pressure transient analysis” will retrieve only documents that contain this exact search phrase. Use Boolean operators to combine a search phrases or terms. For example, “pressure transient analysis” AND “Hydraulic Fracture”.

By default, OnePetro returns only pages that include all of your search terms. You do not need to include AND between terms. The order of search terms affects the search results. To further restrict a search, just include more terms or include special search characters.

When executing a search in OnePetro, OR and NOT are always evaluated before AND. For example, A AND B OR C evaluates the OR operator before the AND operator.

Note: Not all combinations are valid for searches. Only the AND operator can have nested operators underneath. The OR operator can only be applied to one or more positive terms, and the NOT operator can only be applied to a single positive term. No other operators can be nested under the OR or NOT operators.

Boolean Search Examples

For OnePetro users, Booleans can be used on the Basic and Advanced Search page. The Advanced Search page is an example of “field searching”, where specific parts of articles can be selected and combined using Boolean operators. The following are acceptable Boolean search examples in OnePetro:

Example 1

Using AND narrows a search by combining terms. It will retrieve documents that use both the search terms specified, as in this example:

• methane hydrate AND stability. To help illustrate the Boolean logic, this can be expressed as: (methane hydrate AND (stability)) …or also stated as… (A AND (B)).
• Note: AND always narrows a search.

 

Example 2

Using OR broadens a search to include results that contain either of the words entered, as in this example:  

• education OR technology. To help illustrate the Boolean logic, this can be expressed as: (education OR (technology)) …or also stated as… (A OR (B)).
• Note: OR always broadens a search.

 

Example 3

Using NOT will narrow a search by excluding certain search terms, as in this example:

• jazz NOT blues. This search can be expressed as: (jazz AND NOT blues) …or also stated as… (A AND NOT (B)).
• Note: This search finds articles that are exclusively about Jazz. The NOT operator will always exclude articles that contain the specific NOT term.

 

Example 4

For multiple search terms, a combination of Boolean operators can be used to narrow or broaden one’s search, as demonstrated in this example using the AND and the OR operators:

Methane hydrate AND stability OR dissociation. To illustrate the Boolean logic these search terms appear as: (Methane hydrate AND (stability OR dissociation)) …or… (A AND (B OR C))

Date Range Search

Use advanced search and limit searching to a specific year with the Date Range field. Date Range will return papers for only the years specified. Enter single years, ranges (2000-2005), or before/after (<1990, >2000).

Journal Search

To find papers in a specific journal, use Advanced Search and limit your search by selecting the journal from the dropdown.

Though not required, enter the Volume and Issue numbers(s) in the fields to locate a specific journal. For journals published bi-monthly, the following search formats are acceptable (where “m” represents the digit for month): “m/m”, “m_m”, “m-m”, “m – m”. To illustrate, a search for the 2011 November / December issue of the Journal of Canadian Petroleum Technology would be performed as follows:

 

The < or > symbols can be used in the Volume and Issue fields to search all issues greater than or less than the issue entered.

The journal field can be combined with a title or author search in the fields above. It will assume that you are looking for documents with the terms indicated, but only in that specific journal.

Limit Your Search By Organization

The default is to complete your search across all of OnePetro. If you want to limit your search to one or more publishers, you can use Ctrl-click to select one or more publishers from the list.

Special Character Use in OnePetro

OnePetro’s search engine is Google, operating under the Google Search Appliance (GSA). The GSA provides a way to make searching in OnePetro as easy as searching Google.com. It takes advantage of Google’s deep resources in research and engineering to make efficient and intuitive search available to OnePetro users. Nevertheless, there are some notable differences, which can be helpful to OnePetro users.

The table below provides special characters NOT recognized by OnePetro.

Character	Description
The * Operator [ * ]	The * character, used for wildcard searches on Google.com, is not currently accepted by the Google Search Appliance; and therefore, OnePetro does not currently offer a wildcard option.
The .. Operator [ .. ]	The .. operator, used in Google.com to specify that results contain numbers within a number range is not currently an option in OnePetro. For example, find the year the Russian Revolution took place [Russian Revolution 1800..2000].
The ~ Operator [ ~ ]	The tilde [ ~ ] operator take the word immediately following it and searches both for that specific word and for the word's synomyms. For example, [~inexpensive ] matches "inexpensive", "cheap", "affordable", and "low cost".
The [ + ] [ & ] Operators	Although the plus sign (+) and the ampersand (&) are often used interchangeably for the Boolean AND in some search engines, OnePetro treats these characters differently. We DO NOT recommend using these characters. AND, is a strict Boolean. It is recognized as a stopword by GSA and therefore should be used in OnePetro.

The table below provides special characters THAT ARE recognized by OnePetro.

Character	Description
Parentheses [ ( ) ]	Parentheses work by evaluating all terms within the innermost set of parentheses first, then information outside parentheses is read next. For example: (Chemical OR Gas Well) AND Dow retrieves results containing the word “chemical” or the words “gas well” together and then the term “Dow”. If there are nested parentheses, the search engine processes the innermost parenthetical expression first, then the next, and so on until the entire query has been interpreted. For example, ((chemical | gas well) AND Dow) -fractured
Double Quotes [ " " ]	Use double quotes when phrase searching. For example, “pressure transient analysis” will retrieve only documents that contain this exact search phrase. Use Boolean operators to combine a search phrases or terms. For example, “pressure transient analysis” AND “Hydraulic Fracture”.
The . Operator [ . ]	A decimal (.) is a term separator unless it is part of a number. The decimal (.) is used to separate terms so that a phrase search can be performed. In fact, its actions are the same as double quotes [“ “]. For example, Shale.Europe is treated the same as “Shale Europe”. Notice there is no space before or after the decimal, otherwise the decimal will be ignored.

Specific Field Search

In an advanced search, terms can be searched by specific fields such as “Abstract”, “Article Title”, and “Author”. Below is a full list of available search field options.

• Anywhere in Article - the full text of the article, along with all the following fields.

• Title & Abstract - text in the title or abstract of the article.

• Title - words (and their stem-related root words) in the article title only.

• Abstract - words (and their stem-related root words) in the article abstract only.

• Author - last name (and, optionally, initials or first name) of the article's author. A search in this field will not find authors cited in the article. For more on author-name searches, see below.

• Affiliation - the author's employer (affiliation). Note: not all documents have information on the author's employer.

• Conference - either the full name, or a portion of the name where the paper was presented.

Stemming

Stemming of root words will apply in the basic search or in a search that covers "Anywhere in Article" but does not apply to a search by title, author, etc. [Stemming is the process of reducing a word to its root form then searching for that root and all possible endings. For example, when stemming is on, searching for the word stemming would also find stem and stemmed as well as stemming.

Dynamic Navigation

Dynamic Navigation/Search Results Categorization

When you get your search results, the right column gives you a variety of ways to focus and refine your results. This categorization is based on up to 10,000 documents that may be relevant to your search. If you see estimated numbers (e.g. >2850), that means your search pulled a very large number of documents. To return results quickly, the Google search appliance is estimating the actual number of documents.

What happens if I click on an item in the dynamic navigation?

If you click on a society, author, or company, your original search is re-executed with the additional constraint of that publisher, content type, author, company, etc. That will reduce the number of documents returned. You will see a small X appear in the right column next to the item you clicked. If you decide that you want to return to your original search, you can click the X to remove it and you will be back to your original search results.

Why don't I see as many search results as appear in the dynamic navigation?

You will only see a maximum of 1000 search results. This is a function of the Google search appliance. Since most customers rarely go past the first 1-2 pages of results, Google has decided that 1,000 results should be adequate, so that's all that they have enabled. The listing by category at right is based on up to 10,000 papers. You can use elements in this dynamic navigation element to focus your search to get to the 1000 papers most relevant to your needs.

Helpful Hints to Improve Results

More words = better result

Search by relevance works best with three or more words. Entering a single word will return a very large number of documents and the search will have little information on which to decide what is most relevant.

Using OR, Boolean Operator Tip

(Also see Booleans)

If you select to search for your term or phrase in the full article, you cannot use the OR operator on a specific field. "Anywhere in the article" automatically sets the criteria to look in the full record, the program cannot limit the search to just one field for additional criteria.

For example, the below search will return an error and reset the search to AND

• Corrosion (Anywhere in article) OR Smith (Author)

Too Many Results?

Try limiting your search by selecting only the organizations you feel are relevant to your query. By default, the search is set up to search all the organizations listed for your query. (For example: if you know the author wrote the paper for NACE, enter the author's name, and select only NACE in the list of organizations.)

Looking for a paper from a particular meeting?

Enter either the full name or a portion of the name where the paper was presented. For SPE meetings, you can also use the meeting code if you know it (e.g., 11DC, 09OE, 10NAICE)

Note: if you enter both a meeting and select a journal from the drop down menu, you will not get any search results

Provide as much information as possible (more detail = better results)

For example, "reservoir modeling" will return a very large number of results. "Reservoir modeling in carbonates" will provide a more focused group of responses. "Reservoir modeling in carbonates in West Texas" gives an even more focused group of results that may be able to help you locate the information you need quickly. Don't be afraid to use industry terminology. Tell it what you really want to know.

Numbers, punctuation and special characters may have unintended effects, so avoid them as much as possible

Google tends to ignore articles (the, a, an, etc.) and most types of punctuation. Special characters such as letters with carets or accents (e.g., â, é), currency symbols (e.g., €, £), certain punctuation marks (e.g., —), and other types of characters may not find matches because of differing types of character encoding, so they are not recommended in your search unless unavoidable.

Consider spelling differences and synonyms where appropriate

The basic search automatically "stems" words down to their root word and considers all words with the same root to be a match (e.g., expand, expanding, expanded, expandable). Stemming of root words does not apply to a search by title, author, etc.

The search does not automatically account for the differences in U.S. and British spelling of certain words (e.g., favor and favour). Since the search engine is looking through documents from around the world, if a word with alternate spellings is important to your query, you may want to input both as part of your request.

Individual Paper Checkout

OnePetro uses a secure checkout process (note the lock in the lower right of your browser) that is verified by VeriSign. We take your online security very seriously.

All purchases in OnePetro require a credit card for payment. You will go through a series of screens to enter:

• Billing address (which should match the billing address for the credit card you are using)
• Payment information (including security code)
• Confirmation of your order.

When your transaction is complete, a receipt page will be displayed. From that page you can print a copy of your receipt (for your records or expense reimbursement) and you can go directly to a page for downloading the documents you purchased. In case you are unable to download your purchases immediately, or encounter difficulties, an email with information for printing a receipt and downloading documents will be sent to the email address you provided. You will have 6 calendar days to download your purchased documents.

Saved Search Alerts

Use the Set Search Alert feature to create a search alert and be notified (by email) when a saved search retrieves new results. 

To Create a Saved Search Alert

1. Create and run a search.
2. On the Search Results page, click Set Search Alert.
3. On the Search Alerts page, select a frequency (weekly or monthly).  
4. Click the Go button to save the alert and return to the search results page.

To Change the Frequency of a Saved Search Alert

1. Click the View Alerts link in the upper right hand corner.
2. Click the frequency link (“weekly” or “monthly”) to toggle between options.
3. Click the Save Change link to save the frequency.

To Delete a Saved Search Alert

1. Click the View Alerts link in the upper right hand corner.
2. Click the trash icon. On the prompt select OK to confirm delete.
3. To remove all saved search alerts, click the Delete all saved searches link. On the prompt select OK to confirm delete.

Whitelisting OnePetro

Not Receiving Emails From OnePetro? Alert emails are sent from auto-mailer@onepetro.org. Since the emails are “masked” (meaning they appear to come from “auto-mailer”) they may be seen as SPAM by a company’s mail server. To fix this problem, the IT Administrator for the company should whitelist all emails coming from mail.onepetro.org. Another option is to use a third party mail account (i.e., yahoo.com or hotmail.com) and update your email address on OnePetro using the My Account link.

Other Useful Information

Older documents appearing in Saved Searches. Email alerts could contain older documents when they are newly added to the data base. This typically occurs when a new society has joined OnePetro. All historic content from the society that matches a Saved Search Alert will be recognized as “new” and then appear in the next alert.   

Frequently Asked Questions

Why aren’t the search results organized by paper number or year?

When I search for an author, title, or company, why do I get items that are not an exact match?

Why do some of the links to papers appear grayed as if I have already visited them?

When I get to the search results page, it shows that there are already items in my cart. Why?

Do I have to login to use OnePetro?

Why don't you just zip up my papers and email them to me? Or allow me to zip them before download?

I didn't receive the email with my receipt and download information. How can I get a copy?

What version of Adobe Acrobat Reader do I need?