Knowledge about how to conduct efficient searches is among the most essential skills you can have, regardless of your subject or profession. Proper search techniques can help you get hold of relevant information to you here and now, or to gain an insight into what has been published on a topic.

Most search tools and databases are based on the same basic principles. How to narrow your search may vary somewhat between different databases, but you will always find an overview on the database's info page. You can also filter out noise and less relevant sources. Below, you will find three basic search techniques.

Phrase searching

Using quotation marks, you can search for words in a specific order, such as a book title. Such phrase searches can be helpful when searching for particular information, such as the phrase "more plastic than fish."

Video: Halvorsen, V. F. (2020). Phrase searching. film.oslomet.no

Wildcards (truncation)

In Oria and several other search tools, you may replace one or more characters in the middle of or end of your search word with an asterisk (*). This will to broaden your search to include different forms or suffixes of the same words. For instance, you may use wom*n to include both the singular and plural form of the word.

Video: Halvorsen, V. F. (2020). Truncation. film.oslomet.no

Complex (Boolean) searches

When building complex searches with so-called Boolean operators, you will be able to

1. narrow down a results list by putting AND between search words

2. broaden a results list by putting OR between search words

3. exclude words that return irrelevant matches, using NOT between search words. Use NOT with caution and only for words not expected to occur together with relevant use of the word

Video: libncsu. (2022). Boolean Operators. youtube.com

Social media News media Academic literature Artificial intelligence 🔒