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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.
e.g. immigrant* yields immigrant, immigrants
e.g. immigra* yields immigrant, immigrants, immigrate, immigration, immigrating, etc.

Truncation (or wildcard) symbols:

• Most databases use an asterisk (*).
• LexisNexis uses an exclamation mark (!).
• AU Library catalog and World News Connection use a question mark (?).
• iPolls & RoperExpress use a percentage sign (%).
• Ovid databases use dollar sign ($).


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

    Factiva:
    same=words in same paragraph
    sex trafficking same ngo*

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

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

    LexisNexis:
    w/number=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

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

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

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