This tutorial is intended to help you combine keywords to
develop better results when searching for articles, books, or even websites.
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| Combining Keywords with Boolean Connectors |
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| Because databases contain references to thousands of articles, you can use special commands to search them more effectively. Boolean connectors, such as AND and OR, are used to combine keywords. |
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| Boolean Connector: AND |
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| When you want to find articles containing two or more ideas, combine the keywords from your topic sentence by using AND in your search. Using AND between keywords means that all keywords must appear somewhere in the record. AND is used to narrow a search. This concept is illustrated in the Venn diagram below. The letters A, B, C represent keywords from a topic sentence. The Boolean connector AND represents the combination of the keywords. |
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EXAMPLE
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| Three keywords from a topic sentence are: eating disorders, anorexia, bulimia. The Venn diagram below illustrates the combination of these keywords with the Boolean connector AND. |
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(anorexia AND bulimia AND eating disorders)
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Boolean Connector: OR |
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| You may want to use synonyms of the keywords in your topic sentence in order to find additional articles. Use OR to combine keywords and their synonyms because either of these words could appear in the search results. OR is used to broaden your search. |
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In this diagram A represents the main keyword in a topic sentence. B represents the second keyword. C represents a synonym of B. The Boolean connectors AND combine A and B, and A and C. The Boolean connector OR searches for either B or C. |
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EXAMPLE |
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| Two keywords from a topic sentence are: depression, teenagers. The Venn diagram below illustrates the combination of these keywords with the Boolean connector AND. The diagram also illustrates the combination of the main keyword and a synonym of the second keyword. |
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(depression AND teenagers) OR (depression AND adolescents)
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Combine as many keywords and synonyms as possible. This will help to create a wide selection of materials |
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Created by Tracy Ruppman and Victoria West-Pawl
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