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Research Guides@Tufts

Advanced Searching Techniques

Tips for Searching in Tufts Catalog

Whether you are searching for leisure book to read, or a primary resource for your research project, it is important to have some idea of the words that you want to use to construct a search string.  Addtionally, in the Tufts Catalog, the use of Boolean Operators, Wildcard and Truncation Symbols are highly supported and a technique that you can use to replicate your search at another time.

To start a search on the Tufts Catalog, first choose what you would like to search by on the right navigation bar.

Advanced Keyword Searching

Tufts Catalog has an Advanced Keyword searching feature that will allow you to tailor your search with a drop down menu of Fields (Subject, Title,  Boolean operators (AND, AND NOT, OR).  Additionally it will allow you to filter via Location, Language, Material Type, Publisher, and Year.

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Boolean Operators

AND

 Narrows your search to include all terms [Example: heart attack AND cardiovascular disease]

OR  Broadens your search to all or any combination of search terms  [Example: global warming OR greenhouse effect]
AND NOT  Excludes words from search [Example: global warming AND NOT acid rain]

Truncation and Wildcard

?  

 Finds word variants matching on only one character [Example: wom?n will include women, woman ]

  **  
 Finds word variants matching on any number of characters [Example: educat** includes education, educate, educational]
  (  )  
 Use parentheses to group words or concepts so that they are processed logically [Example:(smoking OR nicotine) AND (disease or cancer]
 Multiple words are searched as a phrase [Example: unified medical language system]