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Search Strategy |
What it does |
Example |
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AND (Boolean Operator) |
All terms must appear Narrows your search Fewer results Use to include multiple unique concepts |
“coffee AND Brazil” searches for all articles that include both terms, coffee and Brazil
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OR (Boolean Operator) |
Either term may appear Broadens your search More results Use for related concepts |
“coffee OR caffeine” searches for either term in the articles
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NOT (Boolean Operator) |
Removes a term from your search Narrows your search Fewer results Use for concepts you do not want to include |
“South America NOT Brazil” searches for articles on South America and removes articles with the word Brazil in them
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Phrases |
Search for exact phrases Narrows your search Fewer results |
“ecological tourism” searches for that phrase in that particular order |
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Truncation |
Searches for all forms of a word Broadens your search More results Use to search for the root word of a concept |
Add an asterisk * to the root or stem of a word A search for “tour*” will look for tour, tourism, tourist |
Don't want to read that entire 15-50 page scholarly article? Use the link below to learn how to navigate scholarly journal articles.
Need help figuring out if research is Qualitative or Quantitative? Check out these great resources below. They'll guide you through deciding!
Additional search limits are available when you limit your search to APA PsycINFO and APA PsycARTICLES. Use the Choose Databases link at the top of the Psychology database to deselect all the databases except these two psychology databases.
Limit options available when only searching these two databases include:
1. Population
2. Age Groups
3. Methodology
4. Document Type
