Use phrases when you are searching for something specific and your words have to be in precise order. In some article databases you will need to use quotation marks to limit your search to a phrase, but simply juxtaposing the words will work in the library catalog.
Example from a database: “greenhouse gas
emissions”
Example from catalog: greenhouse gas emissions
Use the advanced search option to restrict searches to particular “fields” of the database record, for example the author, title, subject, citation, abstract, or full-text field. For example, the library catalog offers this feature in Advanced Keyword searching:
Search for variations at the end or middle of a word. For example, in the library catalog, an * at the end of a word and a ? within it serve this purpose. These symbols allow you to expand your search. These symbols will vary from one database to another, with a ? or $ sometimes replacing the * , but the Help information in each database will list them.
Examples from the library catalog and Expanded Academic ASAP database:
boston* and revolution* -- finds Boston,
Bostonian, Bostonians and revolution, revolutionary, revolutionaries, etc.
Vietnam* and (conflict or war) – finds
Vietnam, Vietnamese
wom?n and education –finds woman,
women
Use the limiing feature to restrict your search in some way, for instance by language, date, or type of publication. For example, you might want to find only videos or only books published after a certain year. “Advanced Searching” will normally offer you such ways of limiting your results. Also, after you do a simple search, you will usually see the “Limit” option appear along with your first search results.