When searching online, 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: used to find similar words with different endings
e.g. human* searches "human and humans"
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 exclamation mark (!).
Information on companies and industries may be found by searching the following databases for newspaper, journal, trade and magazine articles. For more detailed instructions on searching for articles please see our Finding Business Articles Guide.
