Library Research Workshop

Searching Language

Sample search query using these terms: 

["chronic pain" OR fibromyalgia OR arthritis OR CPS]   

AND  

[mushroom OR fung* OR mycology OR psilocybin OR psychedelic]

Examples of other search queries in this spreadsheet

Strategies for Developing Search Queries

• Keep track of key terms and synonyms (and add more terms as you go!) 
• Identify additional terms:
  • Browse synonyms in a thesaurus 
  • Include scientific or species names, when relevant
  • Consider how a concept is described in different contexts: academic, trade, popular, etc. 
  • Consider using Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH) or other controlled vocabularies 
• Connect terms using Boolean operators (AND, OR, NOT)  
  • peanut butter AND jelly = search results with both terms
  • peanut butter OR jelly = search results with either term
  • peanut butter NOT jelly = search results exclude jelly
• Use special punctuation when appropriate  
  • Quotation marks around more than one word preserve a phrase as one unit (e.g. “social media”) 
  • Truncation searches for multiple words with same root (e.g. activ* includes active, activism, activity...) 
  • Wildcard searching allows for multiple spellings of words
    • Hashtag: Use colo#r can be used to find all records containing color or colour.
    • Question mark: Use ne?t to find all records containing neat, nest or next.