What are Boolean Operators and how do I use them?
Boolean operators is a fancy way of saying “using AND, OR, and NOT” in a search. When you are searching a topic, you usually have more than one term to search. For example, if you are searching for laws relating to the death penalty, you don’t just search “death penalty,” but you also do a search for laws or legislation. By using the Boolean Operators as described below, you can obtain more meaningful results. AND: Use when you want BOTH terms to appear in the document OR: Use when you EITHER term to appear in the document NOT: Use when you want the first term but NOT the second term to appear in the document. Using InfoTrac (for articles), a search on “death penalty” alone would yield over 15,800 results. Performing the search “death penalty” AND (laws OR legislation) will narrow your results to 5,800. By adding additional terms and restrictions, you can reduce your results set to a manageable number (usually 50 or less.) Searches on various Internet search engines will vary; on Googl
