Now, you might be thinking, "I have enough good results for my paper!"
And if that is your situation, then you can stop here.
But if you don't have enough results, or if you are curious to see if there are more appropriate resources for your topic out there, then it is worth expanding your search with Boolean Operators.
Read the box to the right to learn how.
Now that you have learned how to build a simple search query, the next step is to make it more complex by using the other Boolean Operators to expand or narrow your results.
Go through the tabs in the boxes to the right to learn what these other Boolean Operators are, how they work, how to incorporate them into your search query, and examples.
Boolean Operators are search commands. The main ones are AND, OR and NOT. They are used as conjunctions to combine or exclude keywords when performing a search.
Boolean Operators can lead to more focused and useful results when used properly.
How do Boolean Operators work?
The Boolean Operator AND is typically implied in web search engines, like Google, discovery search systems like GALILEO, and in individual databases. Every time you place a space between your keyword / key phrase, it is like an invisible AND is being placed there.
For example, if you input vegan vegetarian and then run the search, you will retrieve results as if you had searched for vegan AND vegetarian.
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Vegan Vegetarian, or typing Vegan AND Vegetarian = find resources that include the keywords vegan and vegetarian |
Vegan OR Vegetarian = resources that either includes the keyword vegetarian, or the keyword vegan, or both. |
Vegan NOT Vegetarian = resources that have the keyword vegan, and eliminate all the ones that have vegetarian. |
Image adapted from Case Western Reserve University Libraries (2019)
How do I combine other Boolean Operators into my Search Query?
To use OR and NOT, the other common Boolean Operators, there are two main ways to incorporate them in your Search Query:
| Main methods on how to apply Boolean Operators OR and NOT | Pros & Cons |
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Method 1: Use the Advanced Search form in a Discovery Service (eg. GALILEO) or a library database |
Pro: Easiest method; fairly intuitive. Con: In some databases, like EBSCOhost databases, when you select Edit/Modify Search, it will convert it to the parentheses layout. - so you would either need to know how to use the parentheses layout anyway or start again with a new Advanced Search |
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Method 2: Use parentheses to structure a complex Search Query in a Simple Search form |
Pro: Quicker to search this way once you do get accustomed to it. Con: Challenging, until you get used to it
The rest of this part takes you through how to use Method 1: Using the Advanced Search form. |
Watch the below video to learn more about how to use Boolean Operators:
You can expand your search results in the GIL-Find catalog and databases by adding synonyms or related keywords / key phrases with the Boolean Operator OR. This is how:
| Key Concept "A" | Key Concept "B" |
Key Concept "C" |
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social media Snapchat online social networks social networking sites
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self esteem |
adolescents teenagers youth
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Make a space, then type the corresponding synonym, eg. "social media" OR Facebook.
Repeat the process if you have more than one synonym, eg. "social media" OR Facebook OR Twitter OR Instagram OR Snapchat.
Narrow your search results by telling the database to exclude one or more particular words or key phrase with the Boolean Operator NOT:
For example, Anna wants to exclude sources that talk about children from his search, so she adds a row, changes the drop-down Boolean Operator to NOT and inputs children.
