Databases can not complete a 'natural language' search. However, by learning how to use Boolean Operators and Modifiers, your searches will become more precise and yield more useful results. There are six Boolean Operators/Modifiers and all databases use them. You can even use them on Google Scholar.
| Operator | What does it do? | An Example |
| AND | Results will contain both or all of the keywords if AND is used between each one. This is often used to tie together your main keywords. | college campus AND parking |
| OR | Results will contain either of the keywords, but not necessarily both. This is often used for related terms where you want to capture sources that use either term. | college OR university |
| NOT | Results will contain the first keyword, but they will not have the second keyword. Be careful with this operator, it is easy to miss relevant results using 'NOT'. | football NOT soccer |
| Quotation marks "" | Quotation marks look for an exact phrase. The words will be found next to each other in the order that you put them. In our example, articles only mentioning college or library will not be included, only the phrase "college library" | "college library" |
| Parentheses () | Parentheses allow you to group and order your search. In the example here, you will search for the terms college or university and then refine by only showing those searches that also include parking | (college OR university) AND parking |
| Asterisk * | An asterisk truncates a word and allows searching for variations of a word. For the example shown here, you will find the following: program, programs, programmer, programming, programmed | program* |
AND
The word "AND" can help you combine terms to narrow your topic to a manageable one. When you combine two terms with AND, you are telling a database to look for information that contains BOTH of your terms; in other words, you are looking for the area in which the two separate topics intersect.
OR
If you find that you are not retrieving a sufficient number of results, your search may be too narrow. Try broadening it using the word "OR." When you use "OR," you are telling a database that it should return results with EITHER word in it; you do not care whether the two words are related in any way.
NOT
Sometimes you will find two concepts intersect in surprising but irrelevant ways. The word "NOT" can help you eliminate the irrelevant concept from your results. When you combine terms using "NOT," you are telling a database to not bring back any results if they have the second term in them. Use NOT cautiously as you can easliy get rid of relevant results this way.
