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Search Strategies: Using Advanced Search

How to Refine your Search

How to Refine Your Search

When searching the library catalogue it is important to know how to refine your searches. This  can be done with search facets. These are located on the left hand side and can be divided into drop down menus. All of these facets are useful but the video to the right focuses on some of the most commonly used ones.

Truncation

Truncation

Truncation, also called stemming, is a technique that broadens your search to include various word endings and spellings.

  • To use truncation, enter the root of a word and put the truncation symbol at the end.
  • The database will return results that include any ending of that root word.
  • Examples:
    child* = child, childs, children, childrens, childhood
    genetic* = genetic, genetics, genetically
  • Truncation symbols may vary by database; common symbols include: *, !, ?, or #
  • Root words that have multiple endings.  Example: sun = suns, sunshine, sunny, sunlight
  • Words that are spelled differently, but mean the same thing.  Example:  color, colour
  • Truncation/wildcard symbols vary by database.  Check the help screens to find out which symbols are used.

Wildcards:

Alternatively called a wild character or wildcard character, a wildcard is a symbol used to replace or represent one or more characters. The most common wildcards are the asterisk (*), which represents one or more characters, and the question mark (?), which represents a single character. In the examples below of how a wildcard may be used, realize that wildcards are relatively universal but may not work in every program.

  • This is useful if a word is spelled in different ways, but still has the same meaning.
  • Examples:
    wom!n = woman, women
    colo?r = color, colour

If you have questions about applying this technique to your search, Ask Us!


Boolean Operators

What to look for in 'Advanced Search' on the Library Catalogue?

Boolean operators (words; AND, OR and NOT) help narrow or broaden your search results from the library catalogues and databases. 

  • They connect your search words together to either narrow or broaden your set of results.
  • The three basic boolean operators are: ANDOR, and NOT.

Why use Boolean operators?

  • To focus a search, particularly when your topic contains multiple search words or terms.
  • To connect various pieces of information to find exactly what you're looking for.
  • Example: second creation (title) AND Campbell (author) AND 2000 (year)

The Advanced Search on the library catalogue includes easy-to-use prompts for ANDOR, and NOT.

Use AND in a search to:

  • narrow your results
  • tell the database that ALL search terms must be present in the resulting records
  • example: cloning AND humans AND ethics

The purple triangle in the middle of the Venn diagram below represents the result set for this search. It is a small set using AND, the combination of all three search words.

Be aware:  In many, but not all, databases, the AND is implied. 

  • For example, Google automatically puts an AND in between your search terms.
  • Though all your search terms are included in the results, they may not be connected together in the way you want.
  • For example, this search:  college students test anxiety  is translated to:  college AND students AND test AND anxiety. The words may appear individually throughout the resulting records.
  • You can search using phrases to make your results more specific.
  • For example:  "college students" AND "test anxiety". This way, the phrases show up in the results as you expect them to be.

Use OR in a search to:

  • connect two or more similar concepts (synonyms)
  • broaden your results, telling the database that  ANY of your search terms can be present in the resulting records
  • example: cloning OR genetics OR reproduction

All three circles represent the result set for this search. It is a big set because any of those words are valid using the OR operator.