Be sure to use Caps for AND, OR, NOT when searching.
AND - searches for books and articles containing both terms. Example: China AND women
OR - searches for one of the words. Example: "Imperial China" OR "Ming Dynasty"
NOT - exclude a term. Example: NOT "Qin dynasty"
Parenthetical notes () - excellent for OR or NOT searches. Like a math equation, the database will do this part first.
Example: ("Western Han dynasty" OR "Eastern Han dynasty" ) AND Laws
Quotation Marks ""- Links words together in the search. Works best for phrases or proper names.
Example: "Imperial China"
Warning: You might exclude results. A search for "Eastern Han dynasty" will exclude instances where it's just listed as "Han dynasty"
Asterisk * - Allows you to search several word endings at once, without using OR repeatedly.
Example: law* covers law, laws, lawyer, lawyers, lawmakers,
Example: Politic* covers politic, politics, political
Warning: You may get unexpected results. Chin* will give you China and Chinese but also ~450 others ; law* covers about 50 words including lawns