Oxford theses

To search for theses in the Oxford collections on SOLO:

• navigate to the SOLO homepage
• click on the 'Advanced Search' button
• click the 'Material Type' menu and choose the 'Dissertations' option
• type in the title or author of the thesis you are looking for and click the 'Search' button.

Also try an “Any field” search for “Thesis Oxford” along with the author’s name under “creator” and any further “Any field” keywords such as department or subject. 

Searching by shelfmarks

If you are searching using the shelfmark, please make sure you include the dots in your search (e.g. D.Phil.). Records will not be returned if they are left out.

Type your keywords (title, name) into the main search box, and use quotes (“) to search for an exact phrase.

Refine your search results using the drop-downs on the left-hand side. These include:

• item type (thesis, journal article, book section, etc.)
• thesis type (DPhil, MSc, MLitt, etc.)
• subject area (History, Economics, Biochemistry, etc.)
• item date (as a range)
• file availability (whether a full text is available to download or not)

You can also increase the number of search results shown per page, and sort by relevance, date and file availability. You can select and export records to csv or email. 

Select hyperlinked text within the record details, such as “More by this author”, to run a secondary search on an author’s name. You can also select a hyperlinked keyword or subject. 

Basic search

The default Basic search page allows for general keyword searches across all indexes using "and", "and not", "and or" to link the keywords as appropriate. Click on the More Search Options tab for specific title, author, subject and institution (school) searches, and to browse indexes of authors, institutions and subjects. These indexes allow you to add the word or phrase recognised by the database to your search (ie University of Oxford (United Kingdom), not Oxford University).

Advanced search

The Advanced search tab (at the top of the page) enables keyword searching in specific indexes, including author, title, institution, department, adviser and language. If you are unsure of the exact details of thesis, you can use the search boxes on this page to find it by combining the key information you do have.

Search tools

In both the Basic and Advanced search pages you can also limit the search by date by using the boxes at the bottom. Use the Search Tools advice in both the Basic and Advanced pages to undertake more complex and specific searches. Within the list of results, once you have found the record that you are interested in, you can click on the link to obtain a full citation and abstract. You can use the back button on your browser to return to your list of citations.

Browse

The Browse search tab allows you to search by subject or by location (ie institution). These are given in an alphabetical list. You can click on a top-level subject to show subdivisions of the subject. You can click on a country location to show lists of institutions in that country. At each level, you can click on View Documents to show lists of individual theses for that subject division or from that location.

In Browse search, locations and subject divisions are automatically added to a basic search at the bottom of the page. You can search within a subject or location by title, author, institution, subject, date etc, by clicking on Refine Search at the top of the page or More Search Options at the bottom of the page.