Tip 4: Basic ways of narrowing down or Widening your search
You have just done your first search but you might want to limit your search results for certain items or locations.
- One easy way of doing this would be to look at the options when you are typing in your search term in the search box.
- Once you type in a term in the search box, a drop down menu should appear right below the term you just typed with the option of searching just in the SJSU collections, all of the CSU campuses collection, and only articles.
- You can select one of these features if you would like to limit your search to certain collections.
- You have the option of searching for items with exact phrases meaning that if you have a search term that is more than one word, the search would look for items with those exact words you put in. You can do this by adding Quotations to your phrase in the search box.
- You can limit your search by adding boolean operators to your search terms in the search box.
- Boolean operator terms include AND, OR, NOT and should be used in all caps.
- The AND option retrieves items with all your search terms in it.
- The OR option retrieves items with at least one of your search terms in it.
- The NOT option retrieves items that exclude your search terms.
- Boolean operator terms include AND, OR, NOT and should be used in all caps.
For the purpose of this tip, I want my search term to be psychology and children.
