Library:Research Skills For Engineering Students/Module 05/Page 03

There are search operators you can use throughout most databases, which help to include and exclude results.

• The word OR
  • Broadens your search by capturing synonyms or variant spellings of a concept. It means you’re looking for results that have either of the terms.
  • Example: wireless communication OR mobile communication will find results that have either term present
• The word AND
  • Narrows a search by capturing two or more ideas or concepts. It means you’re looking for results that have both or all of the concepts.
  • Example: bridge AND earthquake will find results that have both terms present
• Brackets/Parentheses ( ) gather OR’d synonyms of a concept together, while combining them with another concept
  • Example: (earthquake OR seismic) AND liquefaction
• Quotation marks “ ” narrow your search by finding words together as a phrase, instead of separately
  • Example: “British Columbia” will make sure you find the province of British Columbia, and won’t find other results where the words appear separately
• In many databases, an asterisk (*) will act as a truncation symbol, which expands your search results to find various endings of a word stem.
  • Example: structur* will find structure, structures, structural, structured…

A good way to brainstorm relevant keywords is through controlled vocabulary or subject headings. They describe what the article is about, and can be found in the detailed view of an article record. The vocabulary or headings make up a list in the database known as a thesaurus. The thesaurus contains synonyms, as well as broader and narrower terms. You’ll see an example of using a thesaurus in part 2 of this module.

You can find more tips from UBC Library at Databases – Search Strategies.