Now that you have identified your key terms and synonyms, it's time to build them into a search.
The two connector terms that will help you with this endeavour are AND & OR. AND & OR are called Boolean Operators, and they are the cornerstones of any search. Because of this, you need to understand how they work.
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How OR works: OR is used to broaden a search. You place it between search terms that have a similar meaning. e.g. elderly OR aged OR old age OR geriatric OR seniors How will the database interpret this search? It will look for ANY of these terms. |
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How AND works: AND narrows a search. You place it between the groups of concepts you're searching for, so that it combines them. e.g. (elderly OR aged OR old age OR geriatric OR seniors) AND dementia AND music therapy AND quality of life How will the database interpret this search? It will look for ANY of the OR'd terms and return in your search results the ones that also include the terms dementia, music therapy, and quality of life. Note: If a portion of your search has OR, then you place brackets around the OR terms before inserting the AND. Why? It has to do with the search logic. Just like the order of operations in a math equation (1+2) -1 -- the brackets tell the database to solve the query within the brackets first, then solve the rest of the equation outside the brackets. |
If you're still confused about how AND and OR work, check out this diagram:
Peanut butter and jelly Venn diagrams re-used with permission from Rocco Cremonese of Bailey Library, Slippery Rock University (https://sru.libguides.com/english/librarybasics/booleanoperators)
Besides AND & OR, there are other ways you can adjust your search terms to improve your search. You don't have to use all of these, or even any of these, but if you think they might help you search, they're worth exploring.
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Strategy #1: Phrase Searching Phrase searching is when you put quotation marks around a phrase of two or more words. Why use it? Some search tools are less intuitive than others, and this is especially true when searching for phrases. A phrase is a combination of words in a specific order with a specific meaning. For example, old age is a phrase -- these two words must be together and must be in this order to have meaning. Just because you type the words into the database in a particular order, does not mean the database will search for them in that order. How it works: Using the example above, you would use the quotation marks in the following manner: "old age" AND dementia Caution! Think carefully before using quotations, as there are some cases where your search terms might produce better results if you are not searching them together as a phrase. For example: "toxic chemicals" - while it is true this could be searched as a phrase, it is also true that some authors might write about "chemicals that are toxic", and you would miss out on these results if you were to force the phrase search using quotations. |
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Strategy #2: Truncation Truncation is when you put the asterisk symbol at the end of a root word in order to find plurals and alternate spellings. Why use it? Truncation works in many search tools and can be useful if you want broaden or expand your search. How it works: Example: Let's say you are trying to find information on teen mentors. Rather than typing out all the variations of the word teen and all the variations of the word mentor, like this... (teen OR teens OR teenagers) AND (mentor OR mentors OR mentoring OR mentorship) With truncation, you can insert a symbol at the root of your words which will find the same results: teen* AND mentor* Variations of the truncation symbol: *, ?, $, !, # (While the truncation symbol is most commonly the * symbol, it is not standardized so you do need to double-check which symbol it is in the database you are searching.) Refer to the help guide of the search tool you are using to determine which truncation symbol to use. Caution! Avoid using truncation with very short words, like cat*. While you will find all there is to know about cats, you will also end up with many irrelevant results for catapaults, catatonic, catastrophes, etc. This is all to say that the root word you use needs to be distinct enough to give you useful results! |
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Strategy #3: Proximity searching e.g. A search could be used to find Internet education, and match phrases such as "education over the Internet" or "use of Internet in various education settings" -- all of which would be relevant. Why use it? Proximity searching helps to avoid search results where the words are scattered across a page or a document, unrelated to one another, and helps to return more relevant results. How it works: In CINAHL (EBSCO), if you search for (baseball OR football) N5 concussion* -- you will find results where the word baseball or football is within 5 words before or after the word concussion. (N stands for near, and you place a number beside it to determine the proximity range searched.) In Medline (OVID), if you search for (baseball or football) adj5 concussion* -- you will find results where the word baseball or football is within 5 words before or after the word concussion. (adj stands for adjacent, and you place a number beside it to determine the proximity range searched.)Refer to the help guide of the search tool you are using to determine if proximity searching is an option and what symbols they use -- as the syntax used will vary. |
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