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Developing a Research Strategy
Build a Keyword Search - Boolean Search Using AND
You have now developed a list of concepts related to your
research question. The next step is to enter those concepts into a database.
However, entering your concepts in one long string (such as "students jobs grades") usually does not work.
Unlike web search engines, databases expect you to combine
concepts using special terms. Boolean is the logic that underlies most, if not all, search engines. Conduting a BOOLEAN search using such terms as AND and OR can dramatically improve your search results.
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AND is a
special term that tells databases to combine concepts -- Inserting AND between your concepts allows you to search
for more than one concept at a time.
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Keyword Builder Demonstration Using AND
Imagine that your research question is "How does having a job affect a college student's grades?" Concepts for this research question include : students, jobs, and grades.
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KEYWORD
BUILDER
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The NCSU Libraries Keyword Builder demonstrates how concepts can be combined using AND to create search strings for searching databases:
- Click on the Keyword Builder on the left.
- Clear the top row of boxes in the Keyword Builder.
- Type in the three concept words (students, jobs, and grades) in the top row of boxes.
- Click the "Create Search" button.
Notice how students, jobs, and grades are combined
into a search string.
Note that the different concepts are combined with
the connecter AND. Using AND will instruct the database to retrieve everything with the first concept (students) that also includes the second concept (jobs) and the third concept (grades).
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