This document provides tips for conducting effective searches in library databases, including using truncation and wildcards to broaden searches, Boolean operators like AND and OR to combine or exclude search terms, phrase searching using quotation marks, applying limits like date or publication type, and cited reference searching to find more recent related research. The tips are intended to help users widen their search results and ensure they don't miss relevant information.

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Tips for Searching
Royal Holloway Library
2015

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Truncation/Wildcard Searching
What’s it for? widening your search and ensure you don’t miss
relevant search results.
 In truncation the end of the word is replaced.
For example theat* will find results including the
words theatre, theater, theatric, theatrical etc.
 In wildcard searching, single letters from inside the word are
replaced with a symbol.
For example wom?n will retrieve the terms woman and women.
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Please note! Different databases use different symbols for truncation and
wildcard searching, so use the online help option to check what is used.

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Search Operators
What’s it for? combining your search words and including
synonyms.
 AND - Narrows your search by combining words.The results
found must contain all the words which you have joined by using
AND.
 OR - Broadens your search to include resources which contain
any or all of the terms connected by OR.
 NOT - Narrows your search by excluding a term. Beware! By
using this operator you might exclude relevant records because
you will lose those records which include both words.
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Please note! Some databases use symbols instead of words, e.g. + or &.

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Phrase Searching
What’s it for? Making your search more specific. It is particularly
useful when searching for a title or a quotation.
 Usually speech marks are used to connect the words together.
For example “Power transition theory” will find results which
contain that phrase
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Please note: Some search tools may use (brackets) or 'single quote marks'
rather than speech marks so check the online help.

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Search Limits
What’s it for? Focusing a search by date, language or document
type.
Check the left hand side, for ways to limit your search. Some of the
ways of limiting your search are as follows:
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 Date of publication
 Language
 Place of publication
 Publication type
 Age groups
 Type of material e.g. chapters in books, review articles, book
reviews

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Cited By/TimeCited Search
What’s it for? Finding useful leads on more recent research on
the same topic.
 There is no standard name for this type of search; depending on
which database you are searching it may be referred to as“Cited
reference” or “cited by” or “times cited”.
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Questions? Anything we’ve missed?
Email library@royalholloway.ac.uk
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