SEARCH TIPS FOR DATABASES

 

CEAS Library

Search Tips for Databases

These search tips can make your search easier when you want to find a book in the Library Catalog, search for articles in databases, or find websites.

• “Boolean” search
• AND - Use the AND logical operator when you want to narrow your search. The AND operator requires that all the concepts you've requested are present in the records retrieved.
  
  Example: television AND radio AND newspapers
  -- this will find articles with ALL of these terms, but it will not find articles with only one or two of them.
• OR - Use the OR logical operator when you want to broaden your search or when you want to include synonyms of your main search term. The OR operator requires that any (not necessarily all) of the concepts you've requested are present in the records retrieved.
  
  Example: television OR radio OR newspapers
  -- this will find articles with any, some, or just ONE of these terms.
• NOT - Use the NOT logical operator when you want to exclude concepts from your search. The NOT operator requires that whatever comes after the NOT operator is not present in the records you retrieve.
  
  Example: television NOT radio
  -- this will find articles with "television" but not with "radio".

Not finding many results? Try adding more related words with OR. Example: "News" only gives me 5 results. Try: news OR journalism OR reporting OR broadcast -- this will find more.

• “ ” phrase search
  To match an exact phrase, use quotes around the phrase.
  
  Example: “television advertising”
  -- this will find articles with "television" and "ads" anywhere in the article. "television ads" -- this will find articles with "television ads" as a single phrase.

• * wildcard
  If a query word ends with a * all words on a page which start the same way as that query word will match.

Example: nation*
-- this will find articles containing words that begin with the stem nation: nation, nations, national, nationality, etc.

Note: If you are only looking for the word ads, don't use ad*, because you will get advertisement (good), ads (good), adverse (bad), add (bad), addition (bad), etc. Use ads OR ad OR advert*.

9/25/10