Library Research Tutorial: Adapted from Canvas Course

Boolean operators (and, or, not) can narrow or widen your search.

• Narrowest: and
• Widest: or
• In the middle: not

Cats AND dogs: Any article mentioning both cats and dogs in the same place

Cats OR dogs: Any article mentioning either cats or dogs, not necessarily both

Cats NOT dogs: Any article mentioning cats without talking about dogs

Use quotation marks, parentheses, and asterisks to make a database understand the intent behind your search string. 

Quotation marks: These words in this order

• A set of quotation marks around a search term/key term indicates that you want those exact words in that exact order
• That is, when entering "Alaskan husky," I am not searching for "Alaskan" and "husky," but I am searching for "Alaskan husky."
  • Academic Search Premier results:
    • Alaskan husky: 49 results
    • "Alaskan husky”: 17 results

Parentheses: nesting phrases

• Use parentheses when using multiple Boolean operators in one search. Much like quotation marks link two words, parentheses link two search terms with one Boolean operator.
• For example, if my key terms are "husky" or "malamute" as well as "Iditarod," I will enter the search as follows:
  • (husky OR malamute) AND Iditarod

Asterisk: word ending wildcard

• An asterisk indicates that a word has multiple endings, and you'd like to search for all forms of the word.
• Child: Forms include "children," "childish," "childlike," "childhood," and many more. If I search for "child*", the database will give me results for all forms of the word, not just "child."
  • Academic Search Premier search examples:
    • Child AND dog: 7,049 results
    • child* AND dog: 7,794 results
  • Another example: “puppy,” “puppies,” “pup”
    • Puppy: 4,616 results
    • Pup*: 87,689 results
      • NOTE: baby sharks and baby seals are called “pups,” so this search is not limited to dogs; for that, search “pup* AND dog”