Skip to Main Content

Public Administration

Political Science & Management Databases

Multidisciplinary Databases

Search Tips

Boolean operators:

AND - use to narrow a search and get fewer and more relevant results.
elections and voters

OR - use to broaden a search and get more results. Good for synonyms and words with variant spellings. Add parentheses when using OR.
("latin america" or argentina or colombia)
(organization or organisation)

NOT - use to narrow a search to get more relevant results
mexico not "new mexico"


Truncation:

Use to find words with different word endings. Most databases use an asterisk (*)
e.g. immigrant* yields immigrant, immigrants
e.g. immigra* yields immigrant, immigrants, immigrate, immigration, immigrating, etc.

Proximity search:

Use to find words that are close to each other on a page.
It is one way to find more relevant results.

Each family of databases has its own command words.

EBSCO:
n= words near another word in any order, within a certain number
fundamental* n3 islam*

Factiva:
near= words near another word in any order, within a certain number
president* near3 speech

HeinOnline
~
= words near each other in any order, within a certain number
"watershed planning"~10

Nexis Uni:
w/#=words within a specified number of words, in any order
"human rights" w/2 violations

w/s = words within the same sentence
crime w/s (dc or "district of columbia")

w/p = words within the same paragraph
gays w/p military

Ovid:

adj# = words near another word in any order, within a certain number

ProQuest:
near/= words near another word in any order, within a certain number
"renewable energy" near/5 viable

Scopus
w/# 
= words near another word in any order, within a certain number

Web of Science:
near/= words near another word in any order, within a certain number
government near/3 fund*