Constructing a Search Strategy, page 4

Searching Skills

Additional Search Operators and Functions

Additional search operators and functions are available which will improve your search strategy and results:

Search Operator or Function	What It Does	Example
phrase searching	lets you specify an exact phrase (one or more words or numbers) to search, most often setting the word or phrase in quotation marks	"Atlantic Ocean"
adjacency searching	lets you identify search terms to be close to other search terms	economics NEAR policy
truncation searching	allows you to expand your search by shortening a keyword to search for variant endings of root words. The * is the truncation symbol (also called a "wild card") in the online catalog and other databases.	regulat* will retrieve "regulation," "regulators," etc.
letter replacement searching	lets you replace a letter, usually with an asterisk (*) or a question mark (?) depending upon the information tool searched	wom*n retrieves woman and women
domain searching	search for a term specifically in an Internet domain, such as ".edu" for higher education domains	"Shakespeare site:.edu:" finds Shakespeare at higher education institutions' Web sites

Note: Adjacency and truncation operators are not universal and may vary from database to database. Check database help screens to be sure.