Take the time to grasp the following concepts and you will be a research pro before you know it! These commands give you precision control over your search queries, allowing you to narrow to more specific and relevant results or to expand as needed when it seems like you just can't find anything relevant.

Boolean Logic

Boolean operators are a simple yet powerful set of commands that can be used in databases and search engines to help an information seeker express what they're looking for more clearly. The operators below can be inserted between 2 or more keywords to increase the specificity of your search and in some cases actually convey meaning.

5 common Boolean operators:

AND  only returns results that contain both entered keywords in the full text of the document.

Used for: Narrowing. Increasing specificity of your search query, yielding more relevant results.

Example: professionalism AND physician

OR  retrieves results that contain either one of the entered keywords, or maybe both.

Used for: Broadening. Increasing quantity of relevant results because you have entered additional acceptable terms, synonyms.

Example: assessment OR evaluation

NOT  rejects results that contain the entered keyword in the full text of the document.

Used for: Excluding. Omits unwanted content from results.

Example: temperature NOT climate

"    "  Phrase searching helps when your search term consists of two or more words that must appear together in the defined order to retain meaning

Used for: Specificity. Rejects results that contain your entered terms unless the terms are found exactly as entered (good for titles and names)

Example: "professional identity"

Truncation is the use of a symbol - usually an asterisk (*) - at the end of a root word to include all forms of that word in one search

Used for: Word variance. Searches full text for any keyword that shares the same letters before the asterisk.

Example: hospital* could be used to ensure that your results include the keywords hospital, hospitals, hospitalization

TIP: This is a lot to digest, we know. Try taking small steps like using a single keyword in one search, then two keywords with AND in between them to compare your results.

Most databases have an advanced search with an operator built-in between each keyword box, but you can use operators inside of the keyword box as well. See the Help section in any database if you would like to review its search features and more examples.

Here are a few examples of how to construct a search with multiple keywords to increase relevance of your search results. Notice that Boolean Logic is present with the use of the AND operator between keyword boxes, and the use of OR within a keyword box.

Learning these concepts will save hours of your time and help you gain confidence and direction in your research. Use these concepts in any database or library catalog search.

Example 1

This is a fairly broad search, with our main subject of professionalism entered in the first keyword box. To limit search results to professionalism in the area of health and medicine, we can enter healthcare in the second keyword box. The AND operator between these two boxes means we will only see articles that have both words - professionalism and healthcare - somewhere in the full text.

This is a fine search as is, but what if a word like medical was used instead of healthcare but the article is still relevant to our research? In this query, we have entered healthcare or medical or clinic in the second keyword box to account for varied terminology. Now we will have articles that must contain the word professionalism as well as one or more (not necessarily all) of the keywords in the second box. The OR operator is a great tool for getting more results by including synonyms or similar words.

Example 2

Once again, we have our main subject of professionalism in the first keyword box. This time however, we are targeting our search to a specific professional role by entering physician assistant in the second box.

Professionalism AND physician assistant should yield only the articles that contain both terms in the full text.

Example 3

A more specific subject has been entered in the first box this time - professionalism in nursing. All of the resulting articles should be about this topic. We can use the second box for keywords that express what we want to know about professionalism in nursing so the results are more relevant to our research questions.

Assessment OR identity in the second box will yield results on one or both of those aspects of professionalism in nursing.

The search area and Boolean logic is similar in most databases as well as the Library's Discover advanced search. The last example above worked more effectively in Discover than in the Management Powersearch because Discover includes a search across many more databases and subjects. A lesson in selection of research tools!