Writing 100 (Snyder)

Use AND / OR to join search terminology.

• OR - joins similar terms / terms that get at the same issue - BROADENS
• AND - joins dissimilar terms - NARROWS

Examples: Using OR

- "detention camp" OR "work camp" 

- "killing center" OR "extermination camp"

Examples: Using AND

- holocaust AND memory

-holocaust AND euphemism 

Examples using AND & OR

Sample Search 

"work camp" OR "concentration camp"

   AND

euphemism 

Question: What strategy might we take if Sample returns too many results?  How could we modify this search?

It is common to search for a specific phrase with "quotation marks ".  Most databases will recognize the using of quotation marks to search for two works together.

Examples: " "

"concentration camp"

"national socialism"

Phrase searching ensures that you won't be searching for the individuals words within the phrase, which could return a lot of irrelevant results. 

Search for alternate forms of a work by truncating it and adding an asterisk *.

Example: *

genetic* returns:

genetic, genetics, genetically

Truncation BROADENS

You can use truncation to search for all suffixes on a root work. Be careful though, some complete words might be related to topics outside of your research interest.