Boolean Operators link concepts and are used to broaden or narrow your search. Briefly, here's how they work:
AND - finds results with your all search terms. AND narrows your search.
OR - finds results with any of your search terms. OR broadens your search.
NOT - finds results with only one of your search terms. NOT narrows your search.
Lexy Spry & Emily Wixson, Chemistry Library, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 2008.
Wildcards are used when you are unsure of a particular spelling or if there are alternate spellings of your search term. The most common wildcard symbol across databases is the "?". The wildcards work a little different within each database, but the common function looks something like this:
| If you type: | The database will return: |
|---|---|
| col?r | records containing color, colour, colonizer, and colorimeter |
Similar to wildcards is the truncation function. Truncation is also used when you are unsure of a spelling or only know part of a search term. The common truncation symbol across the databases is the "*". What the * does is it begins searching for any words that begin with the letters you've typed, but may end in many different ways. It looks something like this:
| If you type: | The database will return: |
|---|---|
| educat* | records containing educate, educates, education, educated, etc. |
| teach* | records containing teach, teacher, teachers, teaches, teaching, teachability, etc. |