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Boolean Operators (AND, OR, NOT)

• Use AND to connect keywords and look for both terms together. Example: aerospace AND graduates
• Use OR to include synonyms or similar keywords. Great for when you don't know what word to use yet. Example: college OR university
• Use NOT to exclude topics or subjects that are not relevant to your search. Example: 

McMasters Libraries: How Library Stuff Works Boolean Operators (AND OR NOT) Youtube Video

Modifiers (*, (), " ")

• Use quotation marks or "" to look for a specific phrase or term in that order. Example: "aerospace engineering" will give results only including this exact phrase.
• Use wildcard or * to broaden a keyword to its many forms. Example: minorit* would include minority, minorities, and minoritized in the results.
• Use brackets or parentheses or () to tell the database the order you want to search. Example: (aerospace OR aeronautics) AND "graduation rate" would look first at any results with the term aerospace OR the term aeronautics then it would look for anything that also had the term "graduation rate" in the same result.

Tip: Use the filters to find research reports, empirical articles, peer-reviewed articles.