Using the Library: Searching Tips and Tricks

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library@mvnu.edu

(740) 397-9000 ext.4240

Spring Break Hours:

Friday, February 21: 7:30am - 4:30pm

CLOSED February 22 - March 2; March 8-9

Monday, March 3 - Friday, March 7: 8:00am - 4:30pm

Spring semester hours resume Monday, March 10

Here are a few tricks for getting better search results!

Full Text & Scholarly (Peer Reviewed) Journals:

• Selecting the "Full Text" box ensures that you can actually read the book or articles which appear in the results list. It's almost always a good idea to select this option.
• Selecting the "Scholarly (Peer Reviewed) Journals" box ensures that the articles in the results list have been critiqued by other academic professionals. When you're looking for a journal article, it's a good idea to select this option.

Wildcards:

• The asterisk (*) can be used to search for all words that start with the text before the asterisk
  • For example: politic* will bring results for "political," "politics," "politician," etc.
• The question mark (?) can be used to replace a single letter within a word
  • For example: wom?n will include results for "woman" and "women"

Operators:

• The word "and" can be used to specify certain combinations of keywords
  • For example: "stocks and bonds"
• The word "or" can be used to generate broader results
  • For example: "alaska or canada"
• The words "and not" can be used to exclude irrelevant results
  • For example: "adventure and not vacation"

Search Fields:

• You can alter the search type by changing the search field.
  • Useful fields include "AU Author," "TI Title," and "SU Subject Terms"
  • This can be found in the Advanced Search option

Searches with Multiple Words:

• University science department
• University and science and department
  • These two searches will retrieve the same results.
• "University science department"
  • Quotation marks limit the search to materials which include the search text exactly as it is typed, so the results will be limited significantly.