Super Secret Searching Tips

1.BooleanAND, OR, NOT. More on these in a minute.

2.Phrase searchesPut quotation marks around something and search it as a phrase! like…. “Gun control”

Ever try to search for song lyrics on google? This trick helps!

3. Capital letters don’t matter

4. Use the built in filters!

5. The * Trick more on this in a minute too.

BooleanThese are logic terms, named after a mathematician, that also help us search!

ANDAND limits your search, since results must have ALL your search terms.

OR

OR expands your search, since results can include ANY of your search terms.

NOT

NOT limits your search by eliminating all results containing certain words.

• AND will LIMIT your search

• If you search Cats AND Dogs, the results will include only items that contain both of those words.

• A Venn diagram (remember those?) can help you visualize. Check out pg 88 of the book!

• This is probably the one you will use the most. Why?

Boolean -- OR• OR will EXPAND your search

• If you search Cats OR Dogs, the results will include items that contain either of those words.

Boolean -- NOT• NOT is kind of a weird one.

• It limits, but not the same way, or the same amount that AND will.

• If you search Cats NOT Dogs, it will find everything about Cats, but remove from your results any item that mentioned dogs.

Boolean -- Databases

• These terms are built into the databases, which makes them very easy to use!

The * trick

• The * trick can save you lots of time.

• I’m always telling you about KeyWords right? And how if you’re searching “Bullying” you also need to search “Bullies” and “Bully”?

• Well, the * trick allows you to search all of those terms at once!

The * trick

• Searching Bull* will bring up all those words.

• Searching child* will bring up what?

• What about Facebook*

• The downside of this trick, is that sometimes, you will get words you didn’t mean to! Like searching Bull* will also bring up “bulls”.

Power searching

• Gale and Ebsco are two big companies that own most of our databases.

• Both of them provide you with an option to search multiple databases at the same time.

• This EXPANDS your search from a teacup sized search to a small bucket. (But that’s still smaller than the ocean that is Google!).