Skip to Main Content
Menu
Library
chat loading...

ENGL 110/110x - College Composition I: Search Techniques & Strategies

Keywords and Boolean Searching

When you search in academic library databases including MCC OneSearch, using a combination of keywords and Boolean search operators to give you the best results.

While a search engine like Google will understand "natural" language (i.e., What are the effects of climate change?), databases better understand the combination of keywords and search operators (i.e., "climate change" AND effects). The latter is a search that incorporates the use of keywords and Boolean search operators.

Keywords Are Key!

Databases understand keywords- the main words or phrases related to your topic. So how do you figure out which keywords to use? Start by writing out your research question. 

Say the research question is "What are the effects of water pollution on children's health?"

We can pull out the keywords from this: effects, water pollution, children, health

These keywords are what you will enter in the database search combined with Boolean search operators.

Searching is Strategic (3:14)

Boolean Search Operators

Named after the English Mathematician George Boole, Boolean searching can be used to narrow or expand your search in a library database or even search engines like Google.

Operators that NARROW your search

AND helps narrow your search - it's useful if you get too many results. The more terms you connect with AND, the fewer your results!

Example: effects AND pollution AND children

NOT excludes words from your results. Use sparingly! When you exclude a word, you may be eliminating relevant articles in which the word appears.

Example: pollution AND child NOT adult

" " Quotation Marks put a phrase or words in quotes to search with words in that exact order

Example: "water pollution"

Operators that EXPAND your search

OR expands your search - useful if you get too few results. Try using synonyms or different spellings of a word with OR.

Examples:

  • healthcare OR health care
  • child OR adolescent OR teen

( ) Parentheses Put keywords separated by OR in parentheses when it is used next to AND & NOT

Example: (child OR teen OR adolescent) AND pollution

* Asterisk - Also known as truncation or wildcard. Put this at the end of a word to get anything that starts with that word.

Example: Teen* will find teen, teens, teenage, teenager, etc.

Putting it all together

Using keywords and Boolean searching together, let's take a look at a sample search process:

  • Change your research question into keywords like this:
    Question: Is there any connection between legal drinking age and crime rates?
  • Choose a few important words as your initial keywords: drinking age, crime 
  • To find many forms of a keyword, try truncation. For example to find crime or crimes or criminal, use crim* and this will find crime, crimes, criminal but also Crimea. Think about the possibilities when you use truncation.
  • Use  " "  to around an exact phrase: "drinking age" 
  • Link terms with AND to find articles that mention all of your keywords, Link them with OR to find any of a list of similar words, putting those words inside parentheses (  ):
    "drinking age" and (crim* or felon* or misdemeanor*)

You will likely need to try different keywords and do different searches to find sources. 

Copyright © Manchester Community College | 1066 Front Street, Manchester, NH
Phone: (603) 206-8150