Boolean Searching is something that you have probably already been doing in a variety of contexts. It is a phrase used to refer to a simple set of concepts. From here on in, we will generally refer to it as keyword searching.
You have likely used keyword searching in a search engine on the web to find information on such topics as nutrition or buying a used car.
You may have used keyword searching to search the Whittier College Library Catalog, or to search an online database such as InfoTrac or First Search. The concepts we will cover here will be applicable in many different contexts.
You will be introduced to the general rules for doing this type of searching. However, since each search engine has a particular way of working with search expressions, you will need to consult the help pages of any catalog, search engine, or database for guidelines specific to that tool.
AND is used
when you want all search terms to be present on the web pages listed in
results. The use of AND narrows the search
results.
Example: internet AND literacy will
retrieve only those sites that have both the words internet and literacy in
them.
internet AND literacy
OR is used
when you want any of the search terms to be present on the web pages listed in
the results. Using an OR operator broadens your search
results.
Example: internet OR web
internet OR web
NOT is used to
exclude a term from the search results. It will also narrow the
search.
Example: internet NOT
web
internet NOT web
Nesting is
required when more than one operator is used so that search engine will read
your search in the correct order.
Example: bees AND (honey OR
wax)
Wildcards (*) substitute for a letter within a
word.
Example: Wom*n (for woman or women)
Proximity Operators (ADJ) finds search terms next to each other in the order you type them. Example: Toyota ADJ RAV
Truncation (*, !,
?) is used to search for multiple forms of a word.
Example:
friend* (for friend, friends, friendly, friendship, etc.)
Read more on Boolean
Searching
http://lib.colostate.edu/tutorials/boolean_info.html
http://www.internettutorials.net/boolean.html