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Research Tutorial

Additional Searching Techniques

In addition to Boolean Operators (AND, OR, NOT), there are a couple more tools available to improve your searching:

Quotation marks are used for two or more keywords you want searched as phrases - the database will search for exactly what’s between the quotes.

Here is the updated search with quotation marks:

(“social media” OR Facebook OR Twitter) AND (“online classroom” OR “online learning” OR “distance education”) NOT “community college”

 

Truncation is indicated by an asterisk * and will search for multiple endings of a word all at once. To search for a topic on management and include articles that discuss management, managers, and managing, use truncation.

           Manag*

Will search for:

Management

Manager

Managing

Manage

Truncation

You can also use truncation to search for the singular and plurals of “online classroom” and “community college” at the same time:

(“social media” OR Facebook OR Twitter) AND (“online classroom*” OR “online learning” OR “distance education”) NOT “community college*”

 

*Research Tip: Your search statements will not always be long. They will vary in length depending upon your topic, and the number of related terms for your concept.

For more information see: Searching Basics