English 102 - Research Presentation - McDiarmid : Databases

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. 
Retrieves results containing the word mouse or the word rat together with the word trap. 

Without a Boolean operator

cats dogs

Will automatically "and" search terms

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 word’s woman or women.