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Boolean logic is the technical term for a basic but powerful tool
that can be used in the library catalog and most article databases.
Boolean logic lets you organize concepts and ideas by using
one of three connecting words known as boolean operators.
These three words are AND, OR and NOT. But let's forget about library databases for
a minute. say you were hungry and wanted some apples.
if you were really hungry you might even consider having some oranges.
you'd eat apples OR oranges by allowing for a second option, you've expanded
your selection you have more pieces of fruit to choose from
but if you really wanted some apples AND you wanted to buy locally
so the apples had to be grown in British Columbia you'd have fewer pieces of fruit to choose
from you've now narrowed your selection because
two conditions needed to be met it had to be apples, AND they had to be BC
grown. Another way to narrow a search is to eliminate
a possibility say you wanted apples, but NOT Granny Smith
apples because you don't like them you've reduced the number of apples by removing
Granny Smith apples from the group So, what's this got to do with you?
I'll use Academic Search Complete to show how boolean logic can help you find
articles from magazines and journals on your research topic
this will also work in the library catalog when you're looking for books and DVDs
a search for energy conservation gives me well over seven-thousand articles
which isn't very useful. to narrow or focus the search I'm going to
add a second idea and join the two ideas together with the boolean
operator AND now I have a shorter list of articles on a
more specific topic. If you find your search has found too few
articles, try using the boolean operator OR to expand or broaden your search.
A search for "energy conservation" AND "wind power" can be expanded by adding another
term "solar energy" using the boolean operator OR
If you use a basic search function in many databases including the library catalog
the boolean operator AND is implied, just as it is when searching google
so you don't need to include the word in your search.
the database assumes that you are looking for all the words you enter
in the basic search mode remember AND will narrow a search by requiring
that an additional requirement be met NOT will also narrow it by eliminating certain
concepts from your search OR will broaden your search by allowing for
another term