Use these tips in the advanced search section of the database to help you refine your search.
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.
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.
When searching you can use commands or Boolean operators AND, OR, NOT to improve your results.
| Command | Example | Impact |
| AND | Apples AND Oranges | This decreases the number of results. |
| OR | Oranges OR Satsumas | This increases the number of results. |
| NOT | Apple NOT Computer | This decreases the number of results. |
You can combine all of these techniques together to build up an advanced search.
For example: "chicken pox" AND child*
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: ("science fiction" OR "sci fi") AND (cinema* OR film* OR movie*)
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.