• Start with broad terms and add more to narrow your search as you go
• Use keywords you've brainstormed
• Pay attention to the language and terms being used in the results to help you edit your search
• Use the filters available in databases to help you filter your results by date, by type of source, by subject terms, etc.

Boolean searching allows you to use AND, OR, and NOT to combine your search terms. Click each example to see how to limit or expand your search results.

AND

When you combine search terms with AND, you'll get results in which BOTH terms are present. Using AND limits the number of results because all search terms must appear in your results.

"endangered species" AND "climate change"

OR

When you use OR, you'll get results with EITHER search term. Using OR increases the number of results because either search term can appear in your results.

"arizona prisons" OR "rhode island prisons"

When using OR to join terms, note that there could be some results in which both terms appear.

"corn ethanol" OR "corn fuel"

NOT

When you use NOT you'll get results that exclude a search term. Using NOT limits the number of results.

"miami dolphins" NOT football

Using quotation marks around a phrase when searching will tell the database to look for what is exactly between the quotes and not just the individual words.

"endangered species"

"social media"

"work from home"

Truncation allows you to search different forms of the same word at the same time. Use the root of a word and add an asterisk (*) as a substitute for the word's ending.

psycho*
psychology
psychological
psychologist
psychosis
psychoanalyst

• Truncation can save time and increase your search to include related words.
• In some databases, a question mark (?) can also be used to truncate a word.

Watch this video to see these techniques in use in the Library's SearchBox.