There are a number of various tools to finesse a search, but some of the most commonly used tools are:
- phrase searching
- truncation
- nested searching
- Subject Headings
To find a specific phrase, with the words next to each other in order, use double quotation marks around the phrase:
To search for different forms of a root word, such as vaccin* to find vaccine, vaccines, vaccinate, vaccination, vaccinations, etc.. You can use a wildcard to look for alternate letters within a word, such as wome*n to find woman as well as women. The asterisk * is used in the library catalog and many databases for this.
- vaccin*
- vaccin* AND wom*n
To build a search to combine the concepts, use a nested search:
- vaccin* AND (influenza OR flu) AND wom*n
When combining searches, use parentheses ( ) around different parts of the search, as in the example above. Just like algebra :)
Subject Heading Searching
Think of subject headings as labels or tags that someone has used to identify the subject of a book or article. The subject headings are standardized so that only one term is used for a specific subject. St. Louis Community College Libraries follow the Library of Congress Subject Headings as standards.
