Boolean Logic

Main Contents Page

Before you start

STEP 1: STARTING out

STEP 2: FINDING

Searching techniques:

- Boolean Logic

AND operator

OR operator

NOT operator

- Truncation/wildcards

- Phrase searching

Information finding tools:

- OPAC

- Webbridge

- Databases (incl CD Roms)

- Internet

- Dewey (DDC)

Information sources:

- Dictionaries

- Encyclopaedias

- Atlases

- Almanacs & yearbooks

- Books

- Periodicals/Journals

- Newspapers

- Audio-visual

- Internet

- Grey literature

- Broadcast media

- Conference proceedings

- Maps

- Government publications

- Standards

- Museums

- Archives

- Quiz

STEP 3: EVALUATE

STEP 4: Legal and ethical USE

STEP 5: COMMUNICATE

The AND operator

You use the AND operator to combine two or more keywords/terms. When using AND, you will only retrieve information that includes both these keywords/terms. This operator will give you fewer results.

For example:

A search on the word "Anorexia" retrieved 723 results and a search on "Bulimia" retrieved 537 results.

Putting the two words together like this: Anorexia AND Bulimia, you will retrieve only documents that contain both words in each document.