Library 101 - Your Guide to Library Resources

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Advanced Keyword Searching

Other Search Techniques
AND / OR searching will get you where you need to go on the research trail about 90 percent of the time. If you would like to increase the relevancy of your hits you can try more advanced searching techniques. Here are some of the more commonly used advanced search techniques.

Note: Different databases may use different techniques to do the same thing, so be sure to read the hints, tips, or help sections of databases to find out what techniques are available.

NOT
What it does: narrows your search by EXCLUDING keywords that you don’t want to appear in the hits you retrieve.

Sample search statement:
college students AND internet NOT email

Note: some databases use AND NOT instead of NOT.

" " - Quotation Marks
What it does: searches for two or more words that appear as a PHRASE

Sample search statement:
"college students" AND internet AND "addictive behavior"

Note: some search tools automatically assume that two words typed next to one another should be searched as a phrase. Other databases use operators such as ADJ, W, or N to search for phrases.

? - Truncation
What it does: this symbol is used to TRUNCATE (to shorten) a key word in order to pick up all variant endings.

Sample search statement:
freshmen AND internet AND addict?
This search will find addict, addicts, addiction, addictive, etc.

Note: some search tools use other symbols such as !, *, or $ as a truncation symbol.