NREM Graduate Research Skills

Tutorial: How to Read and Comprehend Scientific Research Articles

(UMN Libraries)  Runtime 5:04

Databases use three primary operators to determine how you want your search to be run:

• OR will find synonyms
  • cat OR feline
• AND will combine ideas
  • cattle AND horses
• NOT will exclude terms
  • mustangs NOT cars

Additionally, the use of () will allow the database to know how you want your search terms to be interpreted:

(horse OR equine) AND (hoof OR hooves) AND lameness

will bring much more relevant results as the search must include at least one term from the three primary concepts used (either or both of the terms horse/equine) AND (either or both of the terms hoof/hooves) AND the term lameness

• Virginia Tech/University Libraries- Kiri De Bose 
• Name of Original LibGuide - Hyperlinked back to the original page. https://guides.lib.vt.edu/subject-guides/apsc/searches

Compare the above to this to the search:

horse OR equine AND hoof OR hooves AND lameness

where the blue indicates what and how the terms would be searched for and brought back in the results list. Here, results would include items that contained any of the following conditions:

• anything with the term horse would be retrieved (so this would include anything about nutrition, reproduction, management, etc.); 
• anything with both of the terms  equine and hoof would be returned (this would include things that weren't related to lameness);
• anything that had both the terms hooves and lameness would  be returned (as the concept of "horse" is not tied to this, the results would include anything that also discussed sheep, cattle, and other animals with hooves that are lame).

Virginia Tech/University Libraries

Animal Science - Kiri DeBose