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What are Boolean Operators?
Boolean operators connect your search words to either broaden or narrow your search results. There are three basic Boolean operators:
Why use Boolean operators?
- To focus a search when your search topic includes multiple search terms
- To connect your search terms to find relevant material
How to Use Boolean Operators
Use AND in a search to:
- Narrow your search results
- Tell a database that all search words are included in each result
- Example: bullying AND school AND internet
- When you add AND, the search results will include books, articles, and more with the terms, bullying, school, AND Internet in each result
Use OR in a search to:
- Connect two or more synonyms or related terms
- Broaden your search by telling the databases to search for any of the words
- Example: teenager OR adolescent OR student
- This search result set with include books, articles, and more with either teenager, student, OR adolescent mentioned in each. This will greatly expand your result set
Use NOT in a search to:
- Exclude terms, words, or concepts from your result set
- Narrow your search results
- Example: social media NOT facebook