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Electronic indexes such as online databases and the CD-ROM products in the Ethel K. Smith Library allow a user to take advantage of what is called "Boolean searching." This is just a fancy term for the ability to put search terms together in various ways to broaden or narrow a search. Boolean searching uses three main "magic words" to accomplish this, "and," "or," and "not."

AND

The most commonly used search word is "and." "And" puts two or more terms together. It is used mainly when one wants fewer results. This function gives all articles that contain both terms.

Example:

Topic: why running is good for a person's mental health

psychology alone retrieves 500 hits; running alone gets 350 hits

psychology and running retrieves 25 hits

OR

The second most commonly used search word is "or." "Or" is used when one wants more results. This function gives all articles that contain either term.

Topic: Over-the-counter pain medications

over-the-counter pain medications gets no hits

aspirin or ibuprofen to get all articles that include either of the drugs

NOT

"Not" is used to limit or define a search. It will help eliminate the problem of words which have more than one meaning.

Topic: Psychological stress in daily life

stress not metals to get results only about psychological stress

Truncation and Wildcards

These databases also allow truncation, a method of retrieving all variations of a particular term. Many use the asterisk ("*") or question mark ("?") for this function. Truncation cuts the term off at its root, getting all variations of it.

Topic: Knee injuries

knee* and injury*

[to get "knee" and "knees"] [to get "injury" and "injuries"]

Wildcards are one-character substitutions.  Not many databases support this feature.  Typical wildcards characters are the question mark ("?") or the pound sign ("#").

Topic: Women Athletes

wom#n and athlete? (here the "?" is a truncation)

[to get "women" and "athletes"] [to get "woman" and "athlete"]

Updated July 27, 2007