Be sure to use Caps for AND, OR, NOT when searching.
AND - searches for books and articles containing both terms. Example: children AND "united states" AND history
OR - searches for one of the words. Example: children OR childhood
NOT - exclude a term. Example: NOT schools
Parenthetical notes () - excellent for OR or NOT searches. Like a math equation, the database will do this part first.
Example: (Virginia OR "West Virginia") AND children
Example: (virginia NOT "West Virginia") AND children
Quotation Marks ""- Links words together in the search. Works best for phrases or proper names.
Example: "sunday school"
Example: "childrens toys"
Warning: You might exclude results. A search for "runaway children" will omit "run away children"
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: school* covers school, schools, schoolroom, schoolbook, schoolmarm, etc
Warning: You may get unexpected results. Wom* will include wombat.