| Search technique | Explanation | Example |
|---|---|---|
| AND | Boolean operator combines all search terms | mother AND father |
| OR | Boolean operator finds either search term | salary OR wage |
| NOT | Excludes term to the right of the operator | pepsi NOT coke |
| Nesting | Indicates order of search; items in () are found first | (mouse OR rat) AND trap |
| Phrase searching | Searches for words in the order entered | "social media" |
| Truncation | Searches for the root word and various endings | teen* |
| Wildcard | Searches for a single character within / at the end of a word | wom?n |
| Field searching | Searching within a specific field of a record | Entering 'rowling' in the Author field to find documents written by the author Rowling |
| Limiters/filters | Narrowing a search (results) according to certain criteria | Using the 'Peer reviewed' filter to retrieve only peer reviewed documents |
An effective database search is a combination of well-chosen search terms, applying the search techniques listed above.
Topic: prevention of youth crime.
prevent* AND ("youth crim*" OR "juvenile delinquen*")
Topic: impact of television viewing on aggressive behavior in children.
(television OR TV) AND (“aggressive behavio?r” OR aggression) AND (child* OR kid?)
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