HERS: Haskell Environmental Research Studies: Finding Articles

Boolean Operators

Boolean operators allow you create searches that combine keywords and search terms for more relevant search results. 

• AND - narrows the search by searching for both terms 
  • Ex. snowfall AND Montana, returns results that contain snowfall and Montana
• OR - broadens the search by searching for either term
  • ​Ex. Apsaalooke OR Crow, returns results that contain either the Apsaalooke or Crow
• NOT - narrows the search by excluding a term 
  • ​Ex. precipitation NOT rain, returns results that contain precipitation, but not rain

Searching Tips

Here are some general searching tips

• Use quotation marks "x" to search a phrase
  • Ex. "climate change"
• Use the wildcard symbol (usually an asterisk *) to search for alternate endings of words
  • Ex. snow* will also search for snows, snowfall, etc
• Use parenthesis () to nest search terms and keywords
  • Ex. (Apsaalooke OR Crow) AND "climate change" AND snow*
• You can combine Boolean searching with other searching tips (see above example)
  • Complex searches can be as ineffective as searches that are too simple because it can narrow your results too much