Be sure to use Caps for AND, OR, NOT when searching.
AND - searches for books and articles containing both terms. Example: Bread AND Culture
OR - searches for one of the words. Example: "soft drinks" OR soda
NOT - exclude a term. Example: corn NOT maize
Parenthetical notes () - excellent for OR or NOT searches. Like a math equation, the database will do this part first.
Example: ("soft drinks" OR soda ) AND "social aspects"= search for social aspects of soda or soft drinkgs
Example: (corn NOT maize) AND culture = search for culture of corn but not maize.
Quotation Marks ""- Links words together in the search. Works best for phrases or proper names.
Example: "wheat beer"
Example: "energy drinks"
Warning: You might exclude results. A search for "digestive biscuits" will omit "digestives."
Asterisk * - Allows you to search several word endings at once, without using OR.
Example: Virginia* will give you results for Virginia, Virginian, Virginians.
Example: wom* will cover women, woman, womens, womanhood.
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 Virginia opossum. Wom* will include wombat.
TIP:
A good starting point is your topic AND "Social Aspects" in the main library catalog, limited to books and ebooks. Also try our article databases for this search.
Many Databases have extra hidden search commands that only work in their database. These are extremely useful BUT differ between databases, so consult the directions for each database before using them
Please note that many databases works differently, so you need to read the about page. For example: