Advanced Techniques
Have boolean searching down and want more clever search tricks? You're in the right place! These techniques can help take your search to the next level. If this feels like too much right now, that's okay! These techniques are rarely required but can save you time.
Phrase Searching
Sometimes, a single idea is described by more than one word. Some examples include: Berlin wall, African American, Cell Phone. There are many of these key phrases. By default, when searching for more than one word databases won't discriminate based on where a word is in the record. However, an item that includes the words: first, lady, united and states in the same record isn't necessarily talking about the first lady of the united states. When this difference is important, enclose the phrase in quotation marks. This is called a phrase search. When phrase searching databases will only return results where the words included in the quotation marks appear together and in that order.
Subject Searching
Database records include information about the resource they describe. This includes a subject term that groups resources on the same topic even if they use different words to describe it. In the advanced search of a database, you can search for relevant subjects. You can also often discover relevant topics by looking at the records for likely looking sources. In many cases you can start a new search from a record by clicking on the linked subject term.
Truncation or Stemming
In some cases, you may find that you want to search multiple variations of the same word. For example, educate, education, educational, educationally. You could include all the variations you can think of using the OR boolean operator. Most databases include a way to do this faster. The symbol can vary by database but is usually an asterisk *. Searching for edu* would return all words that begin with edu, regardless of their ending. There's an art to getting this technique right. If you use a really short stem, for example ed*, you'll get results with words that aren't relevant at all. If you keep too many letters, for example educate*, you'll miss relevant terms.
