Search Tips

            Boolean Operators:

                 And     This Boolean operator tells the computer that the words connected with “and”

                            must be in the article to bring it back.  Keep in mind that many

                             databases, including online magazine indexes and internet, do not require

                             that you type the word “and” between terms; the operator and  is

                             understood.

                OR       This Boolean operator tells the computer that either word will be okay.  This

                            operator is always surrounded by parenthesis ( ) and is used when you

                            are searching for a  concept that has more than one word to describe it.  This

                            Boolean operator is typed uppercase between the terms.                     

                            Examples:  (teenagers OR adolescents) and behavior

                                                  talking and (babies OR infants)

               Not       This Boolean operator tells the computer that this word must not be in the

                           results list.  This  is also surrounded by parenthesis ( ).

                           Example:  (dolphins not football) and behavior and training

              “Searching for phrases”:  When searching for a phrase, it is often useful to

                                                        enclose the phrase in “quotation marks”.  DO NOT use

                                                        quotation marks for sentence fragments.

                           Examples: japan and “international trade”

              Truncation:  Type the root of the word followed by and asterisk *.  This tells the

                                  computer to search for all forms of the word after the root.

                          Example:  educat* will bring back education, educated, educating, educate,

                                           educational.

            General Searching Tips: 

1.      When you find a good article or other material/information, skim it for keywords, phrases, organizations, people, etc., that you might not even think about – you

will be pleasantly surprised by how much more material/information that you

discover that you can then use for further searching.

2.      If you have internet access off-campus, email or save all of the articles that you find in the online magazine indexes that you think you might use; you can then take a look at them or print them out at your leisure.  It’s amazing what you can accomplish in only 15-20 minutes in the library!

            Definitions: 

                  Subject Headings:  Every company has staff who read each article; they then

                  assign subject headings from a controlled authority list that describes the subjects

                  being covered in the article.

                 Key Words:  This phrase can have two meanings.  The most common one is that

                 the computer is searching every word in the entry…including the title, publisher,    

                 abstract, article, subject headings and so on.  The problem is that this can bring back

                 articles that have the word(s) you typed in but are not really about the subject you

                 were searching for.

                        In some databases the readers will take any word(s) that they feel might be

                       useful to search and put it in a key word list.  

     Citation:             

    The basic information needed to find specific materials.  For a book this information includes    author, title, place of publication, publisher and date published.  For a magazine article, the citation usually includes author, title, name of journal, date, volume and pages.  Example:

Establish liability for dog attacks.  Kenneth Phillips. Trial  Sept 2005 v41 i9 p74(1) (207 words)

Title of article:  Establish liability for dog attacks.  Author:  Phillips, Kenneth.  Title of

Journal:  Trial  Date of publication:  Sept 2005   Length of article:  1 page

  Abstract:   A brief summary of an article, book, chapter or other publication.

New York, Oct 11, 2004 v37 i35 p45(5)  When pets attack. Rebecca Skloot.

Rebecca Skloot, a veterinary technician describes the killing of her Border collie Eliteby the dogs living in a junkyard near her Manhattan apartment. With the city authorities saying that there is no law against dog-on-dog crime, Skloot believes that this could lead to the death of other animals as well, followed by humans including a child or an adult.