Be sure to use Caps for AND, OR, NOT when searching.
AND - searches for books and articles containing both terms. Example: "east germany" AND "automobile"
OR - searches for one of the words. Example: "automobile" OR Trabant
NOT - exclude a term. Example: NOT Trabant (in author field)
Parenthetical notes () - excellent for OR or NOT searches. Like a math equation, the database will do this part first.
Example: (Trabant OR automobiles) AND "east German"
Example: ("East german" NOT soviet) AND automobile*
Quotation Marks ""- Links words together in the search. Works best for phrases or proper names.
Example: "east germany"
Warning: You might exclude results. "East German" will exclude "east germany"
Asterisk * - Allows you to search several word endings at once, without using OR.
Example: German* covers German, Germans, Germany
Example: wom* will cover women, woman, womens, womanhood.
Example: school* covers school, schools, schoolroom, schoolbook, schoolmarm, etc
Warning: You may get unexpected results. Virginia* will bring up articles on the Virginia opossum. Wom* will include wombat.