One of the great things about being a computer science major is that you've already got a leg up on searching library databases. We use simple Boolean operators to format searches in order to get the most useful results.
This command tells the database to search for two or more words in article titles, topics, and abstracts:
Quotation marks are used to tell databases to search for words in a certain order. This is especially useful for finding titles or specific topics that can't be boiled down to a specific word:
This tool tells the database to find at least one of two or three words. This tool is the best way to search for synonyms without having to try an entire series of searches:
OR is often paired with parentheses so you can use multiple searching tools in the same search. OR on its own can often bring back too many results, so the parentheses help keep the database from bringing up off-topic resources:
This tool helps you remove irrelevant results from your search. For example, if you're searching for information about artificial intelligence and there are a lot of results for science fiction and movies, you can exclude them like this:
Like OR, truncation is a great way to find synonyms. In this case, truncation helps you find different variations of a word so you don't have to type in every version of a word that you want the database to look for:
The * lets the database know that you want all words that start with those letters. So, this search would bring up: technology, technologies, and technological. Be careful with this one. If you shorten a word too much (techno*), you'll get unexpected results (like techno music).