Research & Instruction Librarian
Search Tips & Strategies: Constructing Your Search
| AND | AND narrows your search by telling Find It @ USC, article databases, or other library resources that ALL keywords must be found in a source in order for it appear in your results |
| OR |
OR broadens your search by telling Find It @ USC, article databases, or other library resources that ANY keywords much be found in a source in order for it to appear in your results. This is a great option for searching synonyms or related terms. If you type in women OR females, results will have either term but not necessarily both. |
* |
This is a truncation symbol that will broaden your search by including various word endings. influen* will search for influence, influences, influential, influencer, as well as influencers |
" " |
Use quotation marks to match an exact phrase or word. If there are different spelling or punctuation options those results will not be returned (Ex: "3-d model" will not show any results that use "3d model" ) "engineering analysis" |
Here is an example of how to construct a search:
