BIOL 4007: Aging, Disease, & Nutrition (Karagodsky): Home

Quotation Marks vs. AND vs.OR

Before building a search, think about how you want to combine your search terms.

• Putting words in quotation marks - if you want to search for a phrase rather than individual words, place the words in quotation marks. Example: "cell signaling"
• Using AND to combine search terms -  when you combine terms using AND, you will retrieve results in which both terms appear somewhere in the fields searched. Example: Cell AND Signaling
• Using OR to combine search terms - use OR to search for either word, which can broaden your results Example "cell attitude" OR "cell behavior"

A Nod to the Asterisk

• Using an asterisk (*) at the end of a word will bring back variations of the word.
• Example: cell* will retrieve results with the words cell, cellular, cellulose, etc.

Reference Resources

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