BE SURE TO USE CAPS FOR AND OR NOT
AND - searches for books and articles containing both terms. Example: "barbed wire" AND "barb wire"
OR - searches for one of the words. Example: "barbed wire" OR "barb wire"
NOT - exclude a term. Example: "barb wire" NOT prisons
Parenthetical notes () - excellent for OR or NOT searches. Like a math equation, the database will do this part first.
Example: ("barbed wire" OR "Barb wire") AND ranchers = search for the materials about ranchers and barded or barb wire.
Example: ("barbed wire" NOT "World War") AND history= search for crime in history of barbed wire but exclude articles about the world wars or trenches.
Quotation Marks ""- Links words together in the search. Works best for phrases or proper names.
Example: "barbed wire"
Example: "western states"
Warning: You might exclude results. A search for "barb wire" will exclude "barbed wire"
Asterisk * - Allows you to search several word endings at once, without using OR.
Example: farm* will include farm, farms, farmer, farmers, farmyard, etc
Example: bicycl* will give you results for bicycle, bicycles, bicycler, bicyclers, bicycling
Example: Wom* will give you woman, women, women's, womanhood etc
Warning: You may get unexpected results: Wom* also givs you wombat and womb
Examples for how to use AND OR NOT