CURI Catalyst Training

SCOPES

Start by choosing the appropriate scope using the buttons above the search box.  "Scope" refers to how wide a net you want to cast when conduction a search

If you select the "Books" scope your results will only include books

If you select the "Articles" scope your results will only include articles

If you accept the default scope (Catalyst), your results will include everything - books, articles, CD's, DVD's, etc.

Truncation

You can strip a word back to its root and then place an asterisk (*) at the end to pick up records with variations of that word:

For example: comput* would pick up records containing computer, computers, computerize, computerization, etc.

Phrase Searching

Put quotation marks around phrases or words that you want to keep together in your search.

For example: you would put quotation marks around "United States" so that it is not confused with the "United Kingdom"

Boolean Operators (always type in capital letters)

AND - use AND to contract your results.  Terms from both sides of the AND condition need to be present in your results.

OR - use OR to expand your results.  Either terms on both sides of the OR condition will be present in your results.

NOT - use NOT to resolve issues of ambiguity (this NOT that)