Search terms, keywords, and searching techniques*
Boolean Operators give you more focused and productive results.
Boolean Operators are the words AND, OR, and NOT
AND narrows your search: Using AND requires both terms to be in each item returned. If one term is contained in the document and the other is not, the item is not included in the resulting list.
Example: A search on stock market AND trading would include results such as stock market trading; trading on the stock market; and trading on the late afternoon stock market.
NOT also narrows your search: The first term is searched, then any records containing the term after NOT are removed from search results.
Example: A search on Mexico NOT city would include results such as New Mexico; the nation of Mexico; US-Mexico trade; but it will NOT include results on Mexico City or This city's trade relationships with Mexico.
OR broadens your search: Using OR means that either search term OR both search terms will be included in your search results.
Example: A search on ecology OR pollution will contain results with the world ecology (but not pollution) and other documents containing the word pollution (but not ecology), as well as results with ecology and pollution in any order regardless of how many times the term appears.
OR is useful when:
A well constructed search may look something like this:
Indigenous Americans OR Native Americans OR American Indians AND boarding schools OR conformity schools
*Adapted from Alliant Libraries
Ever need to get reliable background information on a person, event, theory, or topic? Try searching one of Purdue Libraries' Online Reference Resources! These are scholarly sources, but many are not peer-reviewed. Most come from specialized subject encyclopedias. Unlike encyclopedias you may be familiar with that cover everything from Aardvark to Zoology, subject encyclopedias cover specific subject areas and are much more detailed about a given subject.
As an example, in Credo Reference, you can find an entry on African Americans in Film and Theatre from the Encyclopedia of American Studies.
In Gale eBooks, there's an entry on the Black Panther Party from a 2 volume reference work titled Civil Rights Movements: Past and Present.
Project MUSE is a unique collaboration between libraries and publishers providing 100% full-text and user-friendly online access to high quality humanities, arts, and social sciences journals from scholarly publishers.
