Skip to Main Content

HIST 100: Soundscapes and Societies (Spring 2024)

Boolean (AND OR NOT)

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

AND - searches for books and articles containing both terms. Example: battlefields AND soundscapes

OR - searches for one of the words. Example: "first world war"  OR "world war I"

NOT - exclude a term. Example:  NOT "Second World War" 

Parenthetical notes () - excellent for OR or NOT searches. Like a math equation, the database will do this part first.
Example: ("sound" OR "noise") AND "World War I"  

Quotation Marks  ""- Links words together in the search. Works best for phrases or proper names.
Example: "first world war"
Example: "united States"
Warning: You might exclude results. "Great World War" will omit "world war"

Asterisk * - Allows you to search several word endings at once, without using OR repeatedly.
Example: librar* will cover libraries, library, librarians
Example: soundscape* will cover soundscape, soundscapes
Warning: You may get unexpected results. sound* will also return sounds, soundly, sounder, soundbox, soundstage, etc