Search these databases to find the actual title of an abbreviated journal title. Example: J. Exp. Bot. = Journal of Experimental Botany
Boolean Operators
Boolean operators allow you to expand or narrow your search as needed.
Combine search terms to narrow (“AND”) or broaden (“OR”) results. Use “NOT” to exclude records from retrieval.
Operator | Example | Retrieval |
And | Learning And Motivation | Both terms (Narrows) |
Or | Learning Or Motivation | Either or both terms (Broadens) |
Not | Learning Not Motivation | Excludes those with Motivation (Narrows) |
Truncation (*)
Truncation will find all forms of a word root. The (*) will replace
more than one character. For example, searching “therap*” finds
therapy, therapies, therapist, therapists, therapeutic,
therapeutically, etc.
Exact phrase ". . ."
The exact phrase operator (double quotes) will find the exact phrase.
By bordering your query terms with double quotation marks, you can
search for exact matches to whatever is inside the quotation marks.
For example, "early Columbian artifacts" searches for the exact phrase, but not early artifacts, early vessels Columbian artifacts, etc.