| AND | NARROWS RESULTS | results must include both words | e.g. rubrics AND evaluation |
| OR | BROADENS RESULTS | results can include either word | e.g. assessment OR evaluation |
Sometimes when searching a database you might enter terms that yield no results. If this happens, you might want to search the subject or thesaurus to ensure that the terms you are using are appropriate. The subject headings can also help you expand your search terms by suggesting, broader, narrower and related terms.
Example: In the database, ERIC, click on Thesaurus to identify potential search terms. In this example, the term rubrics was entered and the relevancy ranked radio button was selected. The results show that the database recommends the term Scoring Rubrics be used instead of rubrics or assessment rubrics. See image below for a visual example.
The approach you take when entering your search terms in a library database will affect the results you get. Before building a search, think about how you want to combine your search terms.
Quotation Marks: if you want a group of words to appear exactly as written, place the words in quotation marks. You might use quotation marks so those terms appear as a phrase and not isolated from one another. Example: "educational reform"
Asterisk: Using an asterisk (*) at the end of a word will bring back variations of the word.
Example: educat* will retrieve results with the words educate, educator, education, etc.
Warning: Be careful to not place the asterisk to early in the word because it may retrieve irrelevant results.
Example: ed** will retrieve educate, educator, and education, but it will also retrieve results with words like edge, edamame, edacity etc. which are not likely on point.