Are you finding too much information or perhaps not enough? Use alternative, narrower, or broader keywords to vary your results.
The easiest way to search for information electronically is to enter a couple of keywords into the search box of the resource and see what type of results you get. This strategy, however, will often result in too few, too many, or irrelevant results.
In order to retrieve the most relevant results, you will need to construct a search string. A search string is a combination of keywords, truncation symbols, and boolean operators you enter into the search box of an electronic library resource or an Internet search engine.
Boolean searching is the traditional way to search for information in most online databases and on the Internet. Boolean operators are connector words (AND, OR, and NOT) used to create phrases and concepts based on specific rules of search logic.
AND and NOT will both narrow your results, while OR will broaden your results. These operators can be used in a longer string to refine your results.
| Operator | Examples | Results |
| AND |
|
Retrieves records that contain ALL of the search terms. |
| OR |
|
Retrieves records that contain ANY of the search terms, but does not necessarily include all of them. |
| NOT |
|
Excludes records containing the second search term. |
| Combined | tea AND (coffee OR espresso) NOT mocha |
Tea must appear in the results with either coffee or espresso, or both. Any results with mocha will be excluded. |