Search is literal and relies on specific commands to find and display results in order of relevance. It doesn't consider synonyms or read your mind; it only understands what you type. You can enhance your search by using Boolean operators and modifiers, which can be advantageous once you understand how they work.
| AND | OR | NOT | |
|---|---|---|---|
| How it works: |
Searches for all of the terms in your search Note: This is the default behavior for most searches. |
Searches for any of the terms in your search | Excludes terms from a search |
| Example | If told you had to wear a shirt AND shoes AND Pants, you would have all of those things on your body. | If told you had to wear a shirt OR shoes OR pants, you could wear one, two, or all of those items. | If told you had to wear a shirt OR shoes NOT pants, you would be either severely underdressed or wearing a skirt and a blouse. |
The asterisk can be typed using Shift + 8 on a standard keyboard and looks like a star. Most databases automatically look for plural forms of word (ex. searching toxin also finds toxins) but some words have various endings you may want to search for.
You may think that you don't need to find all the things, but using the asterisk not only finds more, but also changes the relevance rankings of the results.
There are over 100 more articles added to your results when using chemi* and the order in which they are presented changes. An article that uses your search terms more frequently is going to be listed first, and by expanding your search to include all the versions of chemistry, you find articles that are more focused on the topic.
Sometimes words have different contexts or meanings when they are separated from one another. When you place a phrase inside of quotation marks, you are telling the database that you want it to search for those words side-by-side in that exact order. This helps the database find articles that better match your intended meaning.