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HIST 150-09: Gender and Power in the Atlantic Household (Spring 2023)

How to Search Databases

If you take away ONE thing from this session, it should be how to use Boolean:

Be sure to use Caps for AND, OR, NOT when searching.

AND - searches for books and articles containing both terms. Example: atlantic AND household

OR - searches for one of the words. Example: British OR English

NOT - exclude a term. Example:  NOT England  [Note: only use NOT when abstract, title, or subject searching]

Parenthetical notes () - excellent for OR or NOT searches. Like a math equation, the database will do this part first.
Example: (British OR American) AND sailors = search for British or English sailors.
Example: (England NOT London) AND Crime = search for crime in England, excluding London.

Quotation Marks ""- Links words together in the search. Works best for phrases or proper names.
Example: "Atlantic World"
Example: "Virginia Company"
Warning: You might exclude results. A search for "Captain Smith" will exclude all results for "Captaine Smith," which was the original spelling

Asterisk * - Allows you to search several word endings at once, without using OR.
Example: Virginia* will give you results for Virginia, Virginian, Virginians. 
Example: Slave* will give you slave, slaves, slavery, slavers
Example: Brit* will give you British, Britain, Brits.
Warning: You may get unexpected results. Brit* will also yield Brittany, Britons, and Britches. Virginia* will bring up articles on the Didelphis virginiana (opossums). Slav* will bring up Slavs and Slavic.