Skip to Main Content

Geology

New Titles

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

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 theend 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 educat* AND teach* retrieves documents that have both words
 
multiple
keywords		 OR searches for items that have at least one of the keywords educat* OR teach* 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 Europe will not show up in the search results
look for words near one another
 use "near" in between keywords educat* near secondary