| Search Techniques (Boolean Operators) | Sample Search | Explanation |
| And | cats and dogs | Finds documents with both words |
| Not | cats not dogs | Finds documents with the word, "cats" but not "dogs" |
| Or | cats or dogs | Finds documents with either "cats" or "dogs" |
| Using Booleans with parenthesis | (cat OR dog) AND (show OR parade) (mouse OR rat) AND trap |
Finds documents about shows or parades that reference dogs or cats. |
|
Without a Boolean operator |
cats dogs | Will automatically "and" search terms |
| Function | Example | Explanation |
|---|---|---|
| FIND function | Dr. Smith (within a document) | Hold down CTRL and F at the same time. A window pops up and you type in your search. |
| Phrase Searching (use quotations) |
"Flying Purple People Eater" | Finds documents with "Flying Purple People Eater" in the same sequence as searched in. |
| Proximity (n) | farming n5 organic | Finds documents containing farming and organic which occur within five or fewer words of each other in either direction. |
| Single v. plural searching | people (looks for people and peoples) |
When a singular search term is entered some databases like EBSCOhost automatically search the default plural - however they do not do the reverse if you search the plural. |
| Truncating or stemming | stocks and invest* | Finds documents with the word "stocks" along with variations of the word "invest", e.g. investing, investments, and investors. |
| Wildcard | wom?n | Finds documents with the words woman or women. |
Capitalization: most searches are not affected either way by capitals or lower case letters.