CONSUME!!! Boolean Searching

Have you ever seen this before and wondered, "HOW IN THE WORLD AM I GOING TO FIND WHAT I'M LOOKING FOR?" With so many options, AND, OR, NOT, how does this all work?
HAVE NO FEAR! This is not as hard as it seems, and it will help! It has helped me!

Boolean Searching provides a very efficient way for searching things in databanks or the web. Because there is so much information, the more specific you are with your search, the more applicable your search results will be. This skill has saved me so much time, and will save you plenty of time as well!

I apply this type of searching as I gather information for research papers.

For this specific research paper, I am interested in finding articles about the structure of the cyclooxygenase protein active site. Because all three topics are the focus of my research paper, I use 'AND' so that the search engine will know that I am looking for articles on all of these topics. As a result, I get articles that fit my interest :)

This post is a simple explanation on Boolean Searching

The basics behind Boolean Searching is logic. This logic consists of three main operators: OR, AND, and NOT.

For example, if we want to search for: COLLEGE OR UNIVERSITY, it would look something like this:

Basically, when we say COLLEGE OR UNIVERSITY, we ask the search engine to find AT LEAST ONE. If there are 20 articles on colleges and 30 articles on universities, we will result in a search of 50 articles, which are articles on colleges or universities, or both.

college AND university

If we switch to search for COLLEGE AND UNIVERSITY, we would only result in the area where both topics overlap.

Basically, when we say COLLEGE AND UNIVERSITY, we ask the search engine to find articles that have BOTH college and university topics. If there are 20 articles on colleges and 30 articles on universities and only 10 have both, we will result in a search of 10 articles.

college NOT university 

If we switch to search for COLLEGE NOT UNIVERSITY, we would only result in the area of COLLEGE. Anything remotely related to UNIVERSITY will not be selected.

Basically, when we say COLLEGE NOT UNIVERSITY, we ask the search engine to find articles that have college content, but nothing university related. If 20 articles are on colleges, but 5 of these articles also involve universities, we will only get 15 articles.

As you search for research papers or specific video games or recent news articles, but seem to get a lot of junk results and non-pertinent results, use the boolean search to specify your search. I know it will speed up your search and help you find amazingly related articles!

Even the great search engine "Google" has an advanced search option that lets you specify your search.

Alright! Get out there and search efficiently!!!