Database Search Tips and Tricks. THE BASICS. ⢠spell all words correctly. ⢠don't capitalize proper nouns. ⢠don't
Database Search Tips and Tricks THE BASICS
spell all words correctly don’t capitalize proper nouns don’t use punctuation
KEYWORD SEARCHING
important words found within the title, summary, or text use synonyms; EX: sports : altheltic, game, casual, informal, outdoor, sporting is your term a broad term, narrow term, or related term ex: if the term is soccer broad term: ball games or sports narrow term: professional women’s soccer related term: football coaches
TRUNCTATION
add an asterisk (*) to the end of word will give you a variety of the root word with different endings or spellings ex: gene*- genes, genetic, genetics, genetically OR ex: librar*- library, libraries, librarianship, interlibrary, intralibrary
QUOTATION MARKS
use “quotation marks” restricts your search to the words within the quotation marks ex: “human trafficking” will only search for these words when they are linked together
BOOLEAN OPERATORS (or, and, not)
connect search terms together OR used between your search terms will show you results with at least of one the terms o ex: “global warming” OR “greenhouse effect” AND used between your search terms will show only results with both terms o ex: diet AND cancer NOT used between your search terms will cause the database to exclude the word after “NOT” o ex: diet NOTcancer
