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Boolean LogicUsing Boolean Logic
to more effectively search
the internet and databases
Karen Yurish
May 2004
What is Boolean Logic?
• George Boole, 19th century mathematician (Bopp and Smith 100)
• Form of symbolic logic which “uses common words . . . to create and manipulate sets” of information (Bopp and Smith 101)
Benefits of Boolean Logic
• Broaden Search
• Narrow Search
O R
T ru n c a tio n
L o g ic to B ro a d e n yo u r S e a rch
OR
• Will yield results that have either one search word OR the other
• hornets or wasps will give you results that contain either word
Truncation (*,!)• Shortens a word or eliminates characters to
search for many forms of a word
• Also called “wildcards” or “stemming”
• presiden* will search for president, presidents, presidential
• wom*n will search for woman and women
A N D
N O T
Q u o ta tio n M a rk s
P ro x im ity
L o g ic to N a rro w Y o u r S e a rch
AND (+)
• Will search for results which ONLY contain both of your search words
• harmony and hornets will only find results that contain BOTH words
NOT (-)• Will eliminate terms from your search
• rock not music will only search for physical rocks, not musical bands
Quotation Marks
• Quotation marks will search for the EXACT PHRASE in quotation marks
• In this way, you limit the search to an exact phrase
• “Harmony Intermediate School” will yield results with that exact phrase
Proximity• Proximity is a refinement of the Boolean
operator AND (Bopp and Smith 107)• A special operator is used for this search
such as adj (adjacent) or n (near)• harmony n/3 drama would give you a result
such as “Harmony Intermediate School Drama Club . . .” because drama is at most three words from harmony
Advanced Searches
• Still not finding what you need?
• Use the “Help” Section in any search engine or database to do an even more advanced search
Works Cited
Bopp, Richard E and Linda C. Smith. Reference and Information Services: An
Introduction, 3rd edition. Englewood, Colorado: Libraries Unlimited, 2001.