Basic Searching Aids

Boolean Operators:

Most search engines now offer boolean capabilities. Boolean operators express different and specific relationships between words and phrases used in the search.

AND limits a search by requiring each term must be present. For example a search on learning AND cognition specifies that you want information on BOTH learning and cognition. If an article only has the term learning in it, it will not be matched. Using AND will usually produce fewer hits.

OR expands the search by combining discrete terms into a conditional set. Searching for learning OR cognition specifies that you want information either learning or cognition. Using OR usually produces the most hits.

NOT limits the search by specifying that a term not be present. Searching for learning NOT training will find matches with the term learning but not training.

Proximity Operators:

With some search engines you can use proximity operators such as OpenText's NEAR operators or Webcrawler's ADJecent or the FOLLOWED BY operator. With each of these operators, word order is important. For example: if you place square brackets such as [learning theory] causes a hit if they are found within 100 words of each other (Gray, 1966).

Truncation(*):

You can use truncation on most search engines. That is, you can use the asterisk (*) operator to end a root word. For example: searching for teach* will find teacher, teaching, and teachers. Note: the asterisk can not be the first or second letter of a root word.

Wildcard(?):

You can find words that share some but not all characters using the question mark (?) operator. For example: Johns?n will find Johnson and Johnsen. Note: the ? can not be the first character in the search.

You may also use combinations of truncation (*) and single character wildcard (?) in your searches.