RAMAT 110: Race Matters, First-Year Seminar

Once you have a topic statement and a list of keywords, you are almost ready to begin searching for resources online. If you've ever searched for information on Google you are likely familiar with the Simple Search function, which is helpful when you don't know much about a topic and are seeking general information, when you have only a single search term, or when you already know the exact title/author of the resource you are seeking. When searching the library catalog online via Catalyst, you can access the Simple Search function directly from the library home page: https://wp.stolaf.edu/library/.

However, for most research projects, you will find that your searches are more effective and efficient if you build search strings using Boolean operators to combine your keywords in meaningful ways. You can do this manually in the Simple Search box (be sure that your Boolean operators are typed in ALL CAPS) or by means of the Advanced Search option, which you can access by clicking the "Advanced Search" button located beneath the Simple Search box on the library home page.

There are three primary Boolean operators used in searches:

1. AND

The Boolean operator "AND" can help you narrow your search results. It does this by telling the search engine that the terms on both sides of the operator should be included in your search. For example: searching for "black AND farmers" will return results which include both terms.

2. OR

The Boolean operator "OR" can help you broaden your search results. It does this by telling the search engine to return results which include at least one of the terms in that search string. For example: searching for "Hispanic OR Latino" will return results which include either term.

3. NOT

The Boolean operator "NOT" can be used to help eliminate irrelevant search terms. It does this by telling the search engine to exclude results in which the negated term occurs. For example: searching for "pets NOT cats" will return results about pets which do not mention cats. Be cautious in your use of the NOT operator as you don't want to accidentally exclude resources which may be relevant to your research topic.

In addition to the three Boolean operators described above, there are three other search symbols which you can use when building search strings:

4. "Quotation Marks"

When you are searching for a specific phrase, use "quotation marks" to tell the search engine that you want results in which the phrase words occur together. For example: using quotation marks around the phrase "African American" will include only those results which contain that entire phrase. If you search instead for African American (without the quotation marks), the results will include that phrase, but will also include many irrelevant results which contain the word African as well as those which contain the word American.

5. Asterisk*

Another powerful search symbol is the asterisk * which allows you to search for variant endings of a word by means of truncation. For example, if you are looking for resources on the topic of black farming practices, you will likely be interested in results that include any or all of the following terms: farm, farmer, farmers, and farming. Rather than searching for each of those variations individually, you can use an asterisk at the end of the truncated word (e.g.: farm*) to tell the search engine to include all variant endings.

Note that the point of truncation matters, as you do not want to place the asterisk too early or you will get a lot of irrelevant results; for example, searching for the truncated term far* will include not only all variations of farm, but also unrelated terms such as farther, farce, faro, farsighted, etc.

6. (Parentheses)

If you want to create a complex search string using multiple Boolean operators, you can keep relevant terms together by means of parentheses (). For example, if you are search for resources about black farming practices in the US you might try: (black OR "African American") AND farm*