Use Boolean operators to create precise searches

While databases cannot understand natural language, database searches can be made very precise using Boolean operators. Boolean operators tell databases exactly how you want your search terms combined for the optimal results.

There are only five Boolean operators and all library databases understand them.

The chart below briefly describes their functions.

Combine Boolean operators for more complex searches

While there are only a few operators, they can be combined to create a very sophisticated search for increasingly complex research topics. The video below discusses this in detail as well as how to avoid some common pitfalls of database searching. If you prefer, skip to the text discussion beneath it.

Boolean Operators Explained

Now let's go into a little more detail about each operator.

"Quotation Marks"

Quotation marks tell the database to take the phrase as a whole, and search for the words together, and in order. 

Example: Searching wild geese:

• Without quotation marks, the database finds the word wild and the word geese separately. You might get search results about how well domestic geese survive in the wild.
• With quotation marks, the database ignores articles that do not contain the exact phrase "wild geese". It won't bring up "geese wild," or "wild animals, such as Canadian geese."

Truncat*

The asterisk (*) is a kind of wild card that tells the database to find multiple "endings" of a word.

Example: Searching feminism.

• • Without truncation, you get only feminism, but not feminist.
  • When you truncate as feminis*, you get both feminism and feminist.

Be careful of truncating too early in the word itself.

• If you truncate as femini*, you will get feminism, feminist, and also feminine, which may not be on topic.

AND

AND joins two or more concepts by telling the database that both/all of these keywords must appear in the search results.

Example: Searching for Plato's idea of the good life.

• Without AND, most databases assume you meant AND anyway; however, some databases may return items that mention Plato, or the "good life," but not both.
• With AND, the database knows that you need articles that contain the word Plato and the phrase "good life." 

Hint: if your topic is "the X of Y" or "the impact of X on Y," or "X as a Y," or "X in Y," you need to use an AND to join concept X and concept Y.

OR

OR joins two or more keywords for the same concept by telling the database that one or more of them must appear in the search results. It is useful when:

• You have multiple ways of saying the same thing, such as U.S., U.S.A., America, and United States.
• You are searching for two things having to do with the same concept, such as vaccine AND (measles OR "chicken pox")

Example: Searching for rabies in mammals

• Without OR, you could search rabies bats possums "feral cats" and the database would return results that had all of those keywords. You would miss out on the results that talked about rabies in only one of those kinds of animals.
• With OR, you search rabies AND (bats OR possums OR "feral cats") and the database knows that you need to know about rabies in bats, or rabies in possums, or rabies in feral cats, or any combination of the above.

Hint: always put parentheses around groups of keywords joined by OR.

(Parentheses)

Parentheses tell the database that it cannot just work from left to right - it has to perform certain operations first. That is why you need to put parentheses around groups of keywords joined by OR. 

Example: Searching the use of bats and frogs for mosquito control

• If you search "mosquito control" AND bats OR frogs, the database works left to right. First it looks up "mosquito control" AND bats and then it looks for frogs, so you get search results that are about frogs but have nothing to do with mosquito control
• If you search "mosquito control" AND (bats OR frogs), the database knows that it needs to look up bats OR frogs first. Then it looks in those results to find "mosquito control." 

You can also nest parentheses (put one set inside of another) and the the database will work from inside out.

• (((bats OR frogs) AND "mosquito control") AND (playground OR "golf course")): First the database searches bats OR frogs. It searches inside those results for "mosquito control." Then it searches inside those for results that mention either playground or "golf course" or both.

NOT

NOT excludes search results that contain the keyword(s) following it. 

Example: Searching for impact of smog on asthma, but you do not want to read about China.

• Search (smog AND asthma) NOT China, and the database first looks up articles that contain both smog and asthma, and then eliminates all the search results that contain China.

When you might need to use NOT:

• When you are only interested in part of a topic, like dogs NOT poodles. 
• If there is a certain word/phrase associated with your topic that implies a biased point of view, like immigration NOT "illegal aliens"
• If the word/phrase you want to use is most often used as part of a phrase that has to do with something off topic, likeclimate NOT "climate change"
• If a word/phrase for your topic is also used to mean something else, like archive NOT (email OR database)

It is feasible that you may have such a complex search to perform that you might require the use of all six of the Boolean operators to get optimal search results.

For example, let us say that you are looking for medicines or other medical interventions for seizure disorders other than epilepsy.

This search, using all of the Boolean operators, might look like this:

medic* AND (seizures OR "seizure disorders" OR "convulsive disorders" OR convulsions) NOT epilepsy

Try these Boolean Fridge Magnets!

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