Boolean Operators are three words (AND, OR, NOT) that combine keywords into search strings.
AND will narrow a search by focusing on resources that contain both keywords.
Example: "Malcolm Knowles" AND “adult learning”
Example: Andragogy AND pedagogy
OR will broaden a search by looking for two keywords at one time.
Example: "Malcolm Knowles" OR "concept of andragogy"
Example: Andragogy OR pedagogy
NOT will narrow a search by excluding a keyword.
Example: Dewey NOT "Dewey decimal"
Quotation Marks can be used to search for exact phrases. You do not need to place quotation marks around one word or around a search string.
Correct: "Malcolm Knowles"
"adult learners"
"concept of andragogy"
Incorrect: "child"
Truncation. Use an asterisk * to take the place of letters in a word so that other forms of the word can be searched at the same time.
Correct: child* will search for child and children
Phone: 210-486-4513
Email: nvc-library@alamo.edu
Text: 210-390-1112
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