Skip to Main Content

Computer Science 263: Ethical Issues in Software Design

Creating Search Statements

Boolean Handout

Honing your Keywords

Shortening your keywords --  You can search words with a common root by "truncating" them with an *.

For example,

Comput*  will search compute, computer, computers, computerize, computing and so on.

It's always good to put a * symbol after a country name when you search.  For example,

Japan*  will bring up items using the terms  Japan, Japan's, Japanese

Keeping words in phrases together -- It's important to keep words in phrases together to keep them in context.  For example,

"sustainable agriculture" would bring up items on sustainable agriculture. 

If you didn't use the quotation marks you might end up with items about sustainable growth in conventional agriculture which is not what you are looking for.

 

A Hermeneutic Approach for Conducting Literature Reviews and Literature Searches