Finding resources: Advanced searching
Phrase Searching
What is it?
Some databases assume words typed next to each other should be searched as one phrase. However, most academic databases automatically put a Boolean AND between your search terms. This means all your keywords will be present in your search results but not necessarily adjacent to each other. This can lead to retrieving results that are not relevant to your topic. To avoid this happening, use "double quotation marks" to ensure your search terms are found as a phrase in your results.
Examples
In the example below, the phrase critical success factors has been searched with quotation marks and without quotation marks.
Not using double quotation marks will increase the number of results retrieved and sometimes you may find that certain results do not contain the exact phrase you are searching for.
Using double quotation marks will reduce the number of results retrieved. The results will contain the exact phrase you have searched.
Truncation
Using truncation lets you search for a word and all the multiple endings of that word.
The symbol for truncation is usually an * (an asterisk) at the point where the spelling of a word can change.
Example 1: music* - will search for music, musically, musician, musical
Example 2: child* - will search for child, childs, children, childrens, childhood
This will increase your numbers of results.
Search Connectors
When searching you can use commands or Boolean operators AND, OR, NOT to improve your results.
| Command | Example | Search results | Impact |
|---|---|---|---|
| AND |
Apples AND Oranges
|
Apples = 1186 results Apple AND Oranges = 165 results |
This decreases the number of results. |
| OR |
Oranges OR Satsumas
|
Oranges = 920 results Oranges OR Satsumas = 1040 results |
This increases the number of results. |
| NOT |
Apple NOT Computer
|
Apples = 1186 results Apple NOT computer = 126 results |
This decreases the number of results. |
Field Settings
Many databases provide options or filters for you to specify where you would like your search words to appear in the search result. You can look at the video below to know how.
Combine Search Tools
You can combine all of these techniques together to build up an advanced search. For example:
In this search, phrase searching and truncation have been combined. The search would find results containing the exact phrase, chicken pox AND any words that start with child.
Depending on how complex your search is, you may need to use brackets (parentheses). You will most often need to do this when you are using different Boolean operators in a single search. For example:
This type of search can be very powerful, as it allows databases to maximise the number of relevant results. This search will find results that contain any phrase from the first set of brackets AND any word from the second set of brackets.
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