Boolean Operators

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• Boolean Operators

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• Stand if you can answer yes to these questions,
  and
• sit down (or remain sitting) if your answer is
  no

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• Are you wearing skirt AND glasses?

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• Are you wearing something in blue OR gray?

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• Are you wearing a ponytail and NOT wearing
  glasses ?

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• Which words gave you clues to stand or sit?
• AND, OR, NOT
• These are called
• Boolean operators.

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• Boolean operators (AND, OR, NOT) are used
  to broaden or narrow a search.

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AND

• Used to combine two or more terms.
• All of the results MUST contain both or all of
  the terms, but
• The terms are not necessarily next to each other.

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AND
music AND censorship
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AND

• Google assumes an AND between the words you
  typed.
• Research database not this case! You need to use
  the word AND to combine search terms.

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AND

• Google Advanced Search
• with all of the words means AND

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AND
AND
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OR

• Used to broaden a search.
• The results will contain both words or either
  word alone.
• Most often used to combine synonyms or different
  spellings.
• (e.g.)Educator or teacher
• (e.g.) Neighbor or neighbour

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OR
Music OR censorship
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OR
Google Advanced Search With at least one of the
words means OR
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OR
OR
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NOT

• Used to exclude a term.
• Documents containing that term will not be
  retrieved.

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NOT
Music NOT censorship
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NOT

• most search engines ask you to use a minus sign
  (-) in place of the word NOT.
• There is no space between the - and the word.
• (e.g.) cowboys -football

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NOT
Google Advanced Search Without the words
means NOT
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NOT
NOT
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• If you need to find all the articles about cars.
  Which search will get you more articles?
• Cars AND automobiles
• Cars OR automobiles

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• If you need to narrow your search topic. Which
  search will help?
• Teaching AND reading
• Teaching OR reading

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Questions?
Good keywords and Boolean operators will help you
make a better search by including more relevant
items and reduce irrelevant ones.