Library 101 - Your Guide to Library Resources

Get Started - Search Strategy

Activity 2: Search Strategy

Create a Search Strategy with your topic!

Using AND/OR
Online tools give you the option of searching by a few keywords that must be combined by using Boolean commands (AND, OR ...) for items that are related to your research topic. Since your topic will usually be related to more than one keyword, you have to consider how to combine these different keywords in order to retrieve items that best fit your topic.

What Does AND Do?
AND tells an online search tool to retrieve only those items that have ALL the words in your search statement. Here are some examples of how you would use AND to create a search statement:

college students AND internet AND addiction
college students AND web AND addictive behavior
freshmen AND chat rooms AND mental health

What Does OR Do?
OR tells a database to retrieve any items that have any one of the words in your search statement. Here are some examples of how you would use the AND/OR to create a search statement:

(college students OR freshmen) AND chat rooms AND addiction
(university students OR freshmen) AND (internet OR web) AND addiction
college students AND internet AND (addiction OR mental health)

Sample research question:
Are college students at a greater risk for Internet addiction than other people because of the increased reliance on the Internet for communication and research in higher education?

Search Strategy Box:
1. Primary key word concepts from your research topic go across the first row
with AND in the middle.
2. Synonyms, broader, narrower or related terms for those key word concepts go
down each column with OR in the middle.

college students	AND	Internet	AND	addiction
OR		OR		OR
university students	AND	Web	AND	addictive behavior
OR		OR		OR
freshman	AND	chat rooms	AND	mental health

9/27/05