Library FAQ

If you've done a search, and are overwhelmed by the number of search results, there are ways to narrow these further. Some suggestions:

• Be precise. If you've searched "seizures" but you want information on "febrile seizures," be sure to include that in your search terms. What words would an expert use to describe your topic? Think "breast cancer" versus "metaplastic carcinoma." Scholarly research is very specific. Think of synonyms and related terms for all of your research concepts.
• Use Boolean Operators. These search commands tell the databases exactly what you want once you understand how to use them to combine your keywords. (see examples below)
• Narrow by demographics. Do you want information regarding infants? Adolescents? Adults? Seniors? Populations by race, ethnicity, or religious affiliation? Sexual orientation or gender identity? Something else? Add related keywords to your search terms.
• Narrow by location. Limit your results to a certain city, county, state, region, country, or continent by adding it to your keywords.
• Narrow by time period. Choose a year, decade, century or era, and add it to your keywords.
• Use filters: OneSearch and most databases have search filters (e.g.,. limiters, refine results) to the left of the search results. These let you limit by publication date, peer-review status, type of publication and more.
• Use advanced search: OneSearch and most databases have an advanced search option near the basic search bar. Click it to see what other options are available to let you narrow your search even further. Note: The subject-specific databases will offer more relevant advanced search options than OneSearch will. For example: PsycARTICLES (for psychology articles) will let you limit by methodology and demographics without having to add those as keywords.

Using Boolean Operators

The Boolean operators are AND, OR and NOT.

AND tells the database you only want results that contain both terms. For example:
"attachment theory" AND "romantic relationships" 

OR tells the database you will accept results with either term. For example:
stroke AND (treatment OR intervention)
Note that you must use parentheses around the OR terms.

NOT tells the database to exclude certain terms. For example:
"seizure disorders" NOT epilepsy

You can also use a truncation symbol to get various word endings. For example:
music* will give results for music, musical, musician, musicians and musicality

Wildcard symbols can be used within or between words to give different variations. For example:
wom?n will give results for woman, women and womyn
client * solutions will give results for client-centered solutions, client-focused solutions, client-targeted solutions and client-based solutions
Note: the asterisk (*) and question mark symbols are commonly used in many databases, but if they are not working, check the help documentation for the database you are using to find the right symbol for your purpose.

Also be aware that quotation marks tell the database to use the words inside them in that particular order. For example:
"Little House on the Prairie" will return results about the popular book and television series

little house on the prairie will return results about little things, houses, and prairies, but not necessarily the series

You can also combine all of the above for very precise searching. For example:
"pituitary adenoma" AND wom?n AND nurs* AND (treatment OR intervention) NOT inpatient