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BIOL 3290: Applied Plant Ecology: Keywords: Search Tips

Applied Plant Ecology

Boolean Operators

using AND -- OR -- AND NOT in your searches

boolean search

 

boolean search

AND - requires both terms to be in each item returned. If one term is contained in the document and the other is not, the item is not included in the resulting list. (Narrows the search)

Example: A search on stock market AND trading includes results contains:

stock market trading; trading on the stock market; and trading on the late afternoon stock market

OR - either term (or both) will be in the returned document. (Broadens the search)

 Example: A search on ecology OR pollution includes results contains: documents containing the world ecology (but not pollution) and other documents containing the word pollution (but not ecology) as well as documents with ecology and pollution in either order or number of uses.

NOT or AND NOT - (Dependent upon the coding of the database's search engine)—the first term is searched, and then any records containing the term after the operators are subtracted from the results. (Be careful with use, as the attempt to narrow the search may be too exclusive and eliminate good records)

A search on Mexico AND NOT city includes results contains: New Mexico; the nation of Mexico; US-Mexico trade; but does not return Mexico City

Search Tips

When searching online databases, various words are used to help broaden or narrow your search.  Here are a few tips you should know before searching any academic database:

Boolean operators: Most internet and electronic databases follow the rules of boolean logic.  Boolean logic refers to the relationships (connections or differences) between different search terms.  The most common boolean operators are:

AND - used to narrow a search and establish more relevant results by linking keywords together (e.g. "behavioural" and "psychology").

OR - broadens a search and get more results. Typically used for synonyms and words with variant spellings (e.g. "self-actualization" and "self-identity").

NOT - use to narrow a search and get more relevant results (e.g. "behaviouralism" not "humanism").

Truncation: * at the end of a word is used to find similar words with different endings

e.g. ritual* searches "ritual; rituals; ritualism; ritualistic; ritualistically"

e.g. educat* searches "education", "educate", "educational" etc 

asterisk (*)  searches for various different endings of a word in most databases (including York University), however LexisNexis uses an exlamation mark (!).

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