Search Tips for Online Databases

Each database is designed differently. Each may have different searching rules. But here are a few
tips that apply to most databases (Look for Help or Tips buttons on the search screens for individual
database help):

• Enclose phrases in quotations: ie. "yellow brick road" finds that phrase but not "The man in the
  yellow hat was putting a brick in the middle of the road." or "gun control" but not "the guy
  with the gun was out of control."
• Use the asterisk * to truncate terms to find multiple forms of a word. i.e. comput* finds computer,
  computers, computing...
• Use a question mark as a wildcard to substitute of one letter, i.e. wom?n finds woman or
  women; gr?y finds gray or grey.
• Use the words AND, OR and NOT to combine terms:
  1. AND narrows your search (drugs AND sports) finds only items that contain both terms
  2. OR expands your search (baby OR infant) finds items with either of those terms.
  3. NOT excludes unwanted items from a list, i.e. (dolphins NOT football) excludes items about
      the Miami Dolphins from your list when you only want items about the marine animal.
  NOTE: AND, OR and NOT are called Boolean operators. Using them in a search is called
  Boolean searching, named for the Irish mathematician, George Boole. Click to learn more about Boolean searching