Lesson 3: Using Search Techniques

Information Literacy for Adult Learners

CPRG 105: Lesson 3 Using Search Techniques

Boolean OperatorsTruncation

What encourages young people in America to vote?

How to search…???

Copying and pasting this sentence into anonline catalog or databasesearch box will NOT yield you (m)any results!!!

Warning:

Google

DuCat – Online Catalog

ProQuest Central - Database

• 2 Newspaper articles• 1 Magazine article• 1 Scholarly journal article

3 of which were irrelevant!

What encourages young people in America to vote?

Key concepts in your question

Search TermsAnd

Boolean Operators

Keywords and Alternate Terms

Young People

• Youth• Young adults

Vote

• Votes/voted• Voting

America

• United States• US

HOW do you combine your different search terms to find the results you are looking for?

Use Boolean operators and

truncation with your search terms to help you create effective search strings

Combining search terms

Connecting terms that broaden or narrow a search

AND narrows your search

OR broadens your search

Boolean Operators

Use AND to connect two different key concepts

FOR EXAMPLE:

Voting AND Youth

AND

Use OR to connect similar or alternate terms that convey one of your concepts

FOR EXAMPLE:

Youth OR Young People OR Young Adults

OR

RESEARCH QUESTION: What encourages young people to vote?

My two key concepts are:YOUNG PEOPLE and VOTE

Say, I want to look in DuCat for books that address BOTH of those concepts.

How can I do this?

My Topic involves the Youth Vote

• Youth• Young adults

Young people

• Voting• VotedVote

First of all, I look at my terms

Voting

Youth

I decide I want to do a simple search:

If I do a search in DuCat for…

I get 510 titles.

I get 4,474 titles.

If I do a search in DuCat for…

I get 6 titles.

They will address BOTH voting AND youth.

NARROWS my search

Gets me FEWER results

Gets me sources that contain info on BOTH of the different key concepts

AND

Voting AND youth

BUT… I want to take into account the fact that there are alternate terms for youth◦ Young adults◦ Young people

OK, I now have sources with:

If I do a search in DuCat for…

I already know I will get 4, 474 titles

I get 330 titles

If I do a search in DuCat for…

I get 4,727 titles.

These records will contain EITHER youth OR young adults.

BROADENS my search

Gets me MORE results

Gets me sources that contain EITHER of the similar concepts

OR

What if I put it all together?

VOTING AND(YOUTH OR YOUNG PEOPLE OR YOUNG ADULTS)

NESTED SEARCH: Combining OR and AND searches

I do a search in DuCat for…

I get 8 titles.

Boolean Operators

AND OR

NARROWS your search

Gives you FEWER

You want sources that are about BOTH Topic 1 AND Topic 2

BROADENS your search

Gives you MORE

You want sources that are about EITHER Topic 1 OR Topic 2

Keys to Boolean Operators

OR gives you MORE.Use OR to connect SIMILAR terms.

Use AND to connect DIFFERENT concepts.

Truncation

Way to search for variations on a search term using the base

DuCat uses $

Databases use *

College$◦ college◦ colleges

Universit$◦ university◦ universities

Vot$◦ vote◦ votes◦ voted◦ votingvotive

Vot$ AND (youth OR young people OR young adults)

Nested Search w/ Truncation

How many titles do you get?

19

Which gives you MOST?

a. cars

b. cars AND automobiles

c. cars OR automobiles

Boolean Review

Which gives you MOST?

a. cars

b. cars AND automobiles

c. cars OR automobiles

Boolean Review

Which gives you FEWEST?

a. cars

b. cars AND automobiles

c. cars OR automobiles

Boolean Review

Which gives you FEWEST?

a. cars

b. cars AND automobiles

c. cars OR automobiles

Boolean Review

Which gives you MORE?

a. automobiles

b. automobil*

Truncation Review

Which gives you MORE?

a. automobiles

b. automobil*

Truncation Review