ENGL 3040: The History of the English Language

Boolean operators are words or symbols that tell library databases how to search. With Google, you can throw search terms at the search box and trust that Google's search rules and algorithms will take care of things. Library databases need you to type in the search rules along with the topics and subjects you're searching for.

AND

This command tells the database to search for two or more words in article titles, topics, abstracts, and—in the case of JSTOR and Project MUSE—the full text of articles:

• language AND dialect
• "English language" AND dialect AND identity

"Quotation Marks"

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:

• obscenity AND "linguistic drift"
• "English grammar" AND "social media"

Most searching in library databases can be accomplished with AND and quotation marks. But, sometimes, you might need to use these advanced database searching tools to make more nuanced searches.

OR

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: 

• slang OR cant OR colloquialism

(Parentheses)

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: 

• "English language" AND (argot OR jargon)
• "English language" AND (argot OR jargon OR lingo)

Truncation

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:

• gramma* 

The * lets the database know that you want all words that start with those letters. So, this search would bring up: grammar and grammatical. Be careful with this one. If you shorten a word too much (gram*), you'll get unexpected results (like gram-negative bacteria).

NOT

This tool helps you remove irrelevant results from your search. For example, if you're searching for information about obscenity in language but keep getting too many articles about obscenity trials about books, you can exclude articles about censorship by using NOT:

• obscenity NOT censorship

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