Search Techniques for Research Databases

Searches of computerized resources are more effective if you know how to "talk to" the computer systems. Communicating with these systems requires knowing certain basic search techniques. Because these techniques are so important for getting good search results, you should take the time to understand them -- and use them. They will vastly improve your search results in information services and when searching the Internet.

Whenever you begin to use a new computerized resource, look for "help" (or "search tips" or "instructions") that will tell you which of these search techniques is available in the resource and how to apply them in the specific resource you are using. See Search Technique Table for Online Search Tools for a summary table showing which techniques are used in the information services provided by Mundt Online.

The search techniques introduced here are: Boolean operators, plus/minus, phrase searching, and truncation/wildcards.

AND

OR

NOT

+ (plus sign)

- (minus sign)

For example, in some systems, to search for the phrase "sex discrimination," you type:

Other search systems require you to explicitly show that you want a phrase by using some sort of connector. Here are two different ways used to indicate phrases in two different search systems:

Most search systems now use quotation marks to indicate a phrase. For example:

For example, instead of doing the search:

use the "root word" (the letters these words have in common) along with a "wildcard character" accepted by the search system. For example:

Truncation or wildcard characters are different in different systems, so be sure to use the correct wildcard character. For example, here are two different systems' ways of doing this search....