Boolean Operators are simple words (and, or, not) that can be used either in conjunction or alone during your search to narrow or broaden results.
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AND |
used to narrow results |
"cats" AND "dogs" searches for articles with reference to both cats and dogs |
| OR | used to broaden results |
"cats" OR "dogs" searches for articles with references to cats and to articles with references to dogs |
| NOT | used to exclude certain results |
"cats" NOT "dogs" searches for articles with only references to cats and no dogs |
Quotes ("") - words or phrases between quotes will search for the phrase rather than individual words.
Ex. "climate change" searches the phrase instead of searching for articles with both the words climate and change. The quotes allow a more precise search.
Truncation (*) - allows the researcher to search variations of words, such as plural and multiple suffixes
Ex. environment* searches environments, environmental, environmentalist, environmentalists, and environmentalism
Wildcards (? or #) - searches alternate spellings, ? stands for a character, # stands for 0 or a character
Ex. wom?n searches both "woman" and "women," harbo#r searches "harbor" and "harbour"
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