Division of Library Services

When your topic involves more than one keyword you need to use the Boolean operators AND, OR or NOT to limit or broaden a search.

media AND newspapers

The use of AND limits a search to items that contain both terms.

media OR newspapers

The use of OR expands a search by including all the possibilities, that is, all items containing the term media, all containing the term newspapers and all containing both media and newspapers.

media NOT newspapers

The use of NOT excludes an item from a search and thus narrows the topic and the possible matches, that is all items containing the term media, but not the term newspapers. This is useful when a keyword may have several distinct meanings.

Truncation symbols, or wildcards (eg. * $ ?), substitute for one or more characters, and can be used to retrieve variations of the search term(s).

Search@CSU Library

cultur* = culture, cultures or cultural
wom?n = women or woman

OVID

Database mapping must be turned off when using truncation or wildcards in OVID databases.

infect$ or infect:= infects, infection, infections, infected
wom#n = women, woman

Informit and EBSCOhost databases

touris* = tourism, tourist, tourists
organi?ation = organisation, organization

A number of databases allow the use of proximity operators NEAR, N# ADJ# (adjacent), which search for keywords next to each other or near each other in an item. Where # is the number of words between terms.

Most databases also allow you to search for an exact phrase.

OVID

media ADJ3 newspapers = media within 3 words of newspapers.

Informit

media NEAR newspapers = will find records that contain both terms within the same sentence.

EBSCOhost databases

media N5 newspapers = finds both terms within 5 words of one another

For more search tips and information on Boolean terms, truncation and wildcard symbols and proximity operators you can check the HELP sections within individual databases.