Answered By: Kealin McCabe
Last Updated: May 02, 2023     Views: 122

Boolean Operators are AND & OR. Both of these operators have a specific function.

 

AND

makes your search more specific, thus narrowing the results. AND is what you would use to join your concepts together.

 

 
OR
searches for clusters of related terms, thus broadening the results.
(women OR woman  OR  female)
 
Example: Impact of global warming on vulnerable populations

 

Step One: Begin by identifying the major concepts within your research topic and their synonyms. Mapping it out can help you to focus your area of interest making it easier to search. Here is an example of a concept map. You do not have to search each and every term. This is just a helpful process to assist you in focusing your area of interest.

 

 

 

 


Now we need to translate this into a search string. Anything within the same colour pallet will be searched using the Boolean operator OR.  We will then join our concepts together using the Boolean operator AND.

 

Here's what it will look like when you search in a database like Academic Search Complete.

Searching this way means that you will retrieve results about women's reproductive health AND 
climate change

 

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