AP Seminar: Home

Click Here Additional Databases

Click on the image for home access usernames and passwords.

You must be logged into your MCPS Google account to view this document.

Click on the Picture for Research Help

Search by Subject:   is the most precise way to search article databases. Database looks for subjects only in the subject heading or descriptor field, where the most relevant words appear

Search by Keyword: is how you typically search web search engines.  Think of important words or phrases and type them in to get results.

Advanced Search Options:

Boolean operators:

• They connect your search words together to either narrow or broaden your set of results.
• The three basic boolean operators are: AND, OR, and NOT.

Use AND in a search to:

• narrow your results
• tell the database that ALL search terms must be present in the resulting records

Use OR in a search to:

• connect two or more similar concepts (synonyms)
• broaden your results, telling the database that ANY of your search terms can be present in the resulting records

Use NOT in a search to:

• exclude words from your search
• narrow your search, telling the database to ignore concepts that may be implied by your search terms

Stop Words:

Stop words are frequently occurring, insignificant words that appear in a database record, article or web page.

Common stop words include: a, an, the, in, of, on, are

Truncation: broadens your search to include various word endings and spellings.

• To use truncation, enter the root of a word and put the truncation symbol at the end. Usually ans asterisks
• The database will return results that include any ending of that root word.
• Examples: 
  child* = child, childs, children, childrens, childhood

Basic - Booleen Search Tutorial - Colorado State Library

Advanced - Booleen Search Tutorial - Colorado State Library