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Writing 120E: Language as Action

Interdisciplinary Databases

Browse all St. Olaf Databases

Tips and Tricks

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)