Expanding Your Search If you want more items than your search retrieved, there are several ways to expand your search strategy.

Expand by Using Synonyms  flu = influenza  car = automobile  road = street = highway  germs = bacteria  doctor = physician  lawyer = attorney

Expand by Using the Boolean Operator OR Finds materials that contain at least one word or phrase and sometimes both Use OR when you want to BROADEN your topic

to link all the terms related will find MANY more results. If you search for:  Ibm OR mac = 31,374 articles  ibm OR mac OR pc’s = 31,764 articles  Ibm OR mac OR pc’s OR personal computers = 39,481  Ibm OR mac OR pc’s OR personal computers OR macintosh = 45,483 articles  Ibm OR mac OR pc’s OR personal computers OR macintosh OR “international business machines” = 48,477 articles (This is more than anybody wants to know about personal computers, but it shows the power of the "OR" operator.)

Limit by Using the Boolean Operator AND Finds materials that contains both words or phrases Use AND when you want to NARROW your topic

Suppose you are looking for information on body image and how it is influenced by the media.  body image = 1,170 articles  media = 90,850 articles  body image AND media = 87 articles

Limit by Using the Boolean Operator NOT You can use the NOT to exclude specific terms from your search.

Suppose you are looking for articles on cancer, but you do not want your articles to talk about the diagnosis of cancer. Cancer = 88,042 articles Cancer NOT diagnosis = 80,589 articles

REFINING YOUR SEARCH

Use a Thesaurus Thesaurus: a very large list of exact words used as subject headings in a database (each database has its own list of words)

Expand by Using Wild Cards or Truncation Wild cards are symbols that take the place of letters. They may appear either inside a word or at the end. The term truncate (to shorten by cutting off) is sometimes used. Each database uses its own wild card symbol. ?!$*?!$*

To use a wildcard will find MANY more results If you search for: Wom*n = 209,532 articles Among these are:  Woman = 36,952 articles  Women = 181,805 articles  Womyn = 46 articles

Diet* Will find:  Diet  Diets  Dietary  Dietitian  Dieting

Limiting Your Search Most electronic databases have features which help you to limit your search.