11/18/2023 0 Comments Boolean search operators definition+ Elvis -Costello: This will request Elvis, but exclude anything on Elvis Costello.ħ. Use this to exclude pages containing a particular word. Marks words that cannot appear in any Web page on the results list. (minus sign - no space before first letter) + Elvis Presley: This will require that Elvis appears, but Presley will be a request.Ħ. If there is no plus sign, the word can be considered a request, not a requirement (particularly if there is a string of words) Use it to mark words that must appear in each Web page. + (plus sign - no space before first letter) For some engines, it must be used with AND or OR. Is used much like the minus sign to exclude words. This is a good way to connect synonyms or alternate spellings. (Notice that the quotation marks are also used below Boolean Search commands can be used together to maximize their effectiveness.)Ĭonnects two or more words, at least one of which should appear on each Web page returned by the query. Most (but not all) search sites assume this operator by default. In contrast, the query, China Cat Sunflower (without quotes) might return pages containing the words China, cat, and sunflower not necessarily in that order.Ĭonnects two or more search terms all of which must appear on each web page on the results list. "China Cat Sunflower" will return a list of Web pages containing that exact phrase. Without quotation marks, the search engine may assume that the phrase is a list of separate query terms. This eliminates ambiguity for the search engine and ensures that in its results maiden must exist, either unicorn and pegasus may exist, but that the term "tapestry" should not exist.Boolean logic commands are accepted by most search engines and searchable data bases to help the researcher search more efficiently. By grouping the terms this way, you are telling the search engine which terms must be present and which terms are optional. In the above example, (unicorn OR Pegasus) is a sub-query. When your search query includes multiple Boolean operators, parenthesis are important to help the search engine group them in a way that is relevant for your research. This set of results is smaller than the previous one, and no longer includes any content that includes the word, "tapestry." Using NOT in queries let the search engine know that we are not interested in the subsequent terms of the search. If you are seeing too many results that are not relevant to their research, finding a common pattern or theme in those results in which you might exclude a term, might be helpful.įor example, if you were only looking for scholarship on magical creatures that mentions unicorns or Pegasus, but do not want to see any results that include tapestries, the following query would work: Using the NOT Boolean operator will narrow your search results by telling the search engine to exclude results that have a particular search term present. The OR operator also works well if you want to include multiple synonyms in the same search. Using the OR Boolean operator will expand your search results by telling the search engine to return results that have EITHER/ANY of the search terms present.įor exampe, if you wanted to expand your results to include texts that mention unicorns and include results that mention Pegasus as well, the OR operator would expand that search:Īfter using the OR operator, you will return an expanded list of results to review. This will decrease the number of results to review and help you more easily find a relevant article.Īll 1,386 total results will include both the term “unicorn” and the term “maiden.” If, for example, you are interested in researching the claim that unicorns appear to maidens, you might refine this set of results further by adding the operator AND along with "maiden” to your "unicorn" search. Learn more about the AND, OR, and NOT operators, and how they work on JSTOR, below:ĪND is the default Boolean operator, and using it will narrow your search results by telling the search engine to return results that have BOTH/ALL search terms present.įor example, when you search JSTOR for scholarly content using only the search term "unicorn," the search yields a very large set of results. To use them, Boolean operators must be typed in all capital letters. How to use Boolean logic to narrow your searchīoolean operators help search engines use logic to limit, narrow, or broaden your search results in order to surface content that is most relevant to your search.
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