How to Nest Operators

Databases usually default to AND as the primary operator and connect concepts tied together with AND first. You can use parentheses ( ) to indicate to the database how you want your terms to be connected. 

Examples

• Feminism AND (politics OR "public policy" OR government)
• ("Mental health" OR anxiety OR depression NOT suicide) AND ("college students" OR undergraduates OR university students) AND alcohol

What are Wildcards?

Wildcard searching is useful when you have multiple spellings for a word. They can be placed at the end of a word or within a word. 

Question Mark ?: This represents a single character anywhere in a word. It's useful when a word has variable spellings, and you want to search for all of them at once. 

• For example, colo?r will return results for both color and colour.
• Gr?y will return results for both gray or grey

What is Truncation?

Truncation is useful when you have search terms that are "root" terms. For example: teen, teens, teenager. By adding an asterisk * to the end of the root term, you can search for all the variations in one search. 

Examples 

• Music* will return results that include Musical, musician, musicians, musicality 
• Politic* will return results that include Politics, political, politically