Skip to Main Content

Master: Strategic Communication

Advanced Search Strategies

Using Boolean to focus your search

Including one of the Boolean terms in your search helps narrow or broaden results. The 'Not' eliminates terms from search results.

 

Diagram of using AND, OR, NOT to combine search terms

Using punctuation to change results

Truncation means adding a symbol to a word that will change your results. Most of the database help pages will list the truncation symbols that can be applied to a search. These are common symbols in use: 

  • The plus sign (+) at the end of the word retrieves the plural and singular forms of the word. 
  • The asterisk (*) at the end of a word will include variant endings of the word in your search results. e.g., swim* would include swim, swims, swimmer, swimming, etc.
  • Placing quotation (") marks around two words or more indicates the words should be searched as a phrase, with the words next to each other, not separate.

Subject headings 

Review the subject headings found in relevant articles from library databases.

Subject headings are official terms that are usually clickable either from the result list or from the full record seen after you click on the source's title. Using these to guide your search helps to focus the results.