Sociology

The emphasis of this guide is on Sociology resources in the American University Library collections.  With time more and more free Web sites will be added.

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:

• Most databases use an asterisk symbol *.

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 symbol *.

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.

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