WRI 10 (McIntire): Search Tips

AND, OR

Join together search terms in a logical manner.

AND - narrows searches, used to join dissimilar terms
OR - broadens searches, used to join similar terms

Examples:

#1
family AND "mental health"

#2
"world happiness index" OR happiness OR satisfaction

#3
engineering
AND
women OR female*
AND
“career choice”

Quotation Marks

Use quotation marks to search for a phrase

• "first generation college students"
• "social media"
• "migrant workers"
• "fashion industry"

Truncation

Use a symbol (* is the most common) to look for variant endings of a word

• Latin* will search for latino, latina, latinx, etc.
• pesticide* will search for pesticides, pesticide, etc.
• photograph* will search for photograph, photographs, photographic, photography, etc.

Some databases also allow you to use a symbol at the beginning or in the middle of a word

• col*r will search for color or colour
• *politic will search overpolitic, prepolitic, pseudopolitic, etc.

Click on the link for your Writing 10 section and enter your topic and keywords on the Google spreadsheet.

Share Research Questions

Quotation Marks are used to search for a specific phrase. They limit or narrow your search.

• "affirmative action"
• "social media"
• "political correctness"

Truncation allows a search engine to look for variant endings of a word. Use a symbol (* is the most common) at the end of a truncated word. Truncation broadens or expands your search.

• educat* will search for education, educator, educating, etc.
• colleg* finds college, collegium, collegial
• politic* will search for politic, politics, political, politicly, etc.

Some databases also allow you to use a symbol at the beginning or in the middle of a word

• col*r will search for color or colour
• *politic will search overpolitic, prepolitic, pseudopolitic, etc.

You can use multiple search strategies simultaneously.

Example:

"needle exchange program*"

AND

effective*

AND

cit* OR "San Francisco" OR "metropolitan area"