1. CPRG 105: Lesson 3
Using Search Techniques
Boolean Operators
Truncation

2. What encourages young
people in America to
vote?
Copying and pasting this sentence into an
online catalog or database
search box will NOT yield you (m)any results!!!

5. • 2 Newspaper articles
• 1 Magazine article
• 1 Scholarly journal article
3 of which were irrelevant!

6. What encourages
young people in
America to vote?

8. Young
People
•Youth
•Young adults
Vote
•Votes/voted
•Voting
America
•United States
•US

9.  HOW do you combine your different search
terms to find the results you are looking for?
 Use Boolean operators and
truncation with your search terms to help
you create effective search strings

10.  Connecting terms that broaden or narrow a
search
 AND narrows your search
 OR broadens your search

11.  Use AND to connect two different key
concepts
 FOR EXAMPLE:
Voting AND Youth

12.  Use OR to connect similar or alternate terms
that convey one of your concepts
 FOR EXAMPLE:
Youth OR Young People OR Young Adults

13.  RESEARCH QUESTION: What encourages
young people to vote?
 My two key concepts are:
YOUNG PEOPLE and VOTE
 Say, I want to look in DuCat for books that
address BOTH of those concepts.
 How can I do this?

14. •Youth
•Young adults
Young
people
•Voting
•Voted
Vote

15. Voting Youth

16. I get 510 titles.
I get 4,474 titles.

17. I get 6 titles.

18.  NARROWS my search
 Gets me FEWER results
 Gets me sources that contain info on BOTH of
the different key concepts

19.  Voting AND youth
 BUT… I want to take into account the fact that
there are alternate terms for youth
◦ Young adults
◦ Young people

20. I already know I will get 4, 474 titles
I get 330 titles

21. I get 4,727 titles.

22.  BROADENS my search
 Gets me MORE results
 Gets me sources that contain EITHER of the
similar concepts

23. VOTING AND
(YOUTH OR YOUNG PEOPLE OR
YOUNG ADULTS)
NESTED SEARCH:
Combining OR and AND searches

24. I get 8 titles.

25. AND OR
 NARROWS your
search
 Gives you FEWER
 You want sources that
are about BOTH Topic
1 AND Topic 2
 BROADENS your
search
 Gives you MORE
 You want sources that
are about EITHER Topic
1 OR Topic 2

27.  Way to search for
variations on a
search term using
the base
 DuCat uses $
 Databases use *
 College$
◦ college
◦ colleges
 Universit$
◦ university
◦ universities
 Vot$
◦ vote
◦ votes
◦ voted
◦ voting
votive

28. Vot$ AND (youth OR young people OR
young adults)
How many titles
do you get?

29. Which gives you MOST?
a. cars
b. cars AND automobiles
c. cars OR automobiles

30. Which gives you MOST?
a. cars
b. cars AND automobiles
c. cars OR automobiles

31. Which gives you FEWEST?
a. cars
b. cars AND automobiles
c. cars OR automobiles

32. Which gives you FEWEST?
a. cars
b. cars AND automobiles
c. cars OR automobiles

33. Which gives you MORE?
a. automobiles
b. automobil*

34. Which gives you MORE?
a. automobiles
b. automobil*