Save time by searching like a librarian! Try these three strategies for creating search queries:
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A. Combine your keywords into a search query: |
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Link main ideas together with AND:
Using AND will give you fewer search results |
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Link related terms together with OR:
Using OR will give you more search results |
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Exclude specific terms using NOT :
Use NOT with care -- you might end up excluding articles that just mention the unwanted term in passing |
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B. Use quotation marks " " to search words as a phrase: |
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Use phrase searching with care -- putting too many words in quotation marks can exclude relevant articles. |
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C. Use an asterisk * to search for multiple word endings: |
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In many databases, the * character is a wildcard that tells the database to search for multiple characters in place of the *
(The technical name for this search technique is "truncation", and the trans* example illustrates how truncation can bring back a LOT of results in a multidisciplinary database -- truncation often works best in a subject-specific database) |
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Use these tutorials to learn how to explore research topics and to conduct structure and reaction searching in SciFinder
