Module 3:
Some Practice Exercises |
©2020 by Chris Niemeyer, University of Missouri-St. Louis.
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Below is the "advanced search" screen from a library database.
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As is typically the case, Boolean comes provided as the default Boolean option.
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Now notice that the search lines contains an incomplete search about: |
oceanic acidification |
with a Boolean or.
or
acidification
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Click the best words from the group below to complete the "oceanic acidification" search: sea ocean sea ocean sea ocean or Great! sea or ocean occitan cilantro seattle oscar orca season search osha acidification Screen5 |
Click the best words from the group below to complete this search about: |
Words in English that stem from Native American languages |
Luwian Vulcan Quidditch Sanskrit Finnish Bulgarian Fortran Newspeak Sudanese Aztec Cherokee Mayan Aztec Cherokee Mayan Aztec Cherokee Mayan or or "Native American" or Aztec or Cherokee or Mayan Great! "Native American" or "loan words" or vocabulary English Screen7 |
On the second line, TYPE-IN a conclusion to the search: |
dreaming and dogs or cats |
and then click the Search button:
dreaming Very good! Type: dogs or cats Screen10 |
Now type a conclusion to the search: |
trauma or depression with juries or jurors |
on BOTH lines and click Search: Very good! trauma or depression on one line juries or jurors on the other line Screen12 |
REMEMBER, we have been using OR in these exercises, but AND has always been here, too.
"Native American" or Aztec or Cherokee or Mayan
"loan words" or vocabulary
English
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We haven't needed to write AND
since, in most cases, it is the default Boolean option for most "advanced search" screens:
"Native American" or Aztec or Cherokee or Mayan
"loan words" or vocabulary
English
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Nor have we used keyword 'truncation' (often an *asterisk* to increase search results, though we could have done so if we had wanted to.
* * sea or ocean sea or ocean* acidification acid* Screen16 |
In the example below, ocean* would retrieve variants like oceanic, oceans as well as just ocean.
Similarly, acid* would retrieve terms like acidity, acidifying, acidification as well as just acid. sea or ocean* acid* Screen17 |
Most important: if you're having trouble finding information, ask a reference librarian for help! :-) | |
Module finished! |
sea or ocean*
acid*
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