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Southwest Studies

Keyword Searching

                        Using AND/OR/NOT (Boolean Search Operators)

AND

Use AND to focus search and combine different aspects of your topic.

Example: vegetarianism and environment
OR

Use OR to expand your search and find synonyms/related terms.

Example: global warming or climate change
NOT

Use NOT to exclude a word or phrase from your search

Example: emissions trading not United States

 

Additional Search Tips

"Phrase search"  - Use quotation marks (" ") to search for a particular phrase.

Example: "greenhouse gas emissions"

Truncation * - Use an asterisk to find variations of a word. Put an asterisk following the root of the word to find all variations of that word, including singular and plural.

Example: environment* (finds environments, environmental, environmentalist, etc.)

(Grouping/Nesting Keywords) - Use parentheses ( ) as a way to group all your search terms together.

Example: (climate change or global warming) and population growth

Search Strategies

Search Goal How To Example
find a phrase

Place quotation marks around a group of words

 "secondary education"
broaden a
keyword
search  
Use an asterisk (*) at the
end of a word to search for variations of a word
at one time

educat*  searches for educate, educating, education, etc.

 
search for
multiple
keywords   
AND searches for items that contain both keywords

 

OR searches for items that have at least one of the keywords

educat* AND secondary retrieves documents that have both words

 

educat* OR secondary pulls items with either word

stop a keyword
from showing
up in results
 NOT excludes items with a specific keyword

educat* NOT secondary means that any items with the word secondary will not show up in the search results
look for words near one
another
 use "near" in between keywords
 educat* "near" secondary