Be sure to use Caps for AND, OR, NOT when searching.
AND - searches for books and articles containing both terms. Example: "African Diaspora" AND "United Kingdom"
OR - searches for one of the words. Example: "African Diaspora" OR "Black diaspora"
NOT - exclude a term. Example: NOT "South Africa"
Parenthetical notes () - excellent for OR or NOT searches. Like a math equation, the database will do this part first.
Example: ("African Diaspora" OR "Black diaspora") AND Canada
Quotation Marks ""- Links words together in the search. Works best for phrases or proper names.
Example: "African Diaspora"
Example: "United states"
Warning: You might exclude results. "Pan-African movement" will exclude the phrase "pan-african"
Asterisk * - Allows you to search several word endings at once, without using OR.
Example: Diaspora* covers diaspora, diasporas, diasporic, diasporical
Example: wom* will cover women, woman, womens, womanhood.
Warning: You may get unexpected results. Brit* gets you Brits, British, Britain, Brittany, Britches and about 25 more.
IMPORTANT NOTES:
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: