Boolean search is a common search language in many databases and even basic search engines like Google. It allows you to search beyond single words and refine your search terms.
- AND allows you to combine two terms
- "Social media" AND "celebrities"
- OR will tell the database that either term is acceptable
- "social media" OR facebook OR twitter
- NOT will exclude words from your search and narrow your search
- "social media" NOT "digital media"
- " " are used for terms that are more than one word
- * is for truncation, it's good for words with multiple endings
- celebrit* (would look for terms that start with celebrit-, things like celebrity, celebrities
- ? and # can be used for wild card, or if you looking for words with multiple spellings
- colo?r, for color, colour
- wom!n, for woman, women
- You can combine all these things to make much longer searches
- ("social media" OR facebook OR twitter) AND celebrit*
Every database and site might use a slightly varied approach to these advanced searching techniques, check with the one your are using.
