Avoid Natural Language
- Stick to keywords and phrases - don't write out questions in full.
Use Quotation Marks Around Phrases
- This ensures your search results will include the phrase, not the individual words found separately in the document.
Use the Advanced Search
- It will be located in different places depending on the database, but it will help refine and improve your search.
Use Limiters Provided by the Database to Narrow/Focus Your Results
- Limiters are usually found on the left or right hand side of your search results.
- Limit by source type, date of publication, reading level, subject, publication, and more
Use Boolean Operators
Exact match: "search"
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If you're looking for an exact phrase, use quotation marks.
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For example: "let them eat cake"
Site-specific: site:
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Put site: in front of a website or domain if you want to get results from only a specific site or domain.
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For example: recipes site:nytimes.com or climate change site:.gov
Exclusion: -search
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Put a minus sign/hyphen in front of a word you want excluded from your search results. This is helpful if your search term has multiple meanings
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For example: inception -film