When your search returns too many documents, use a limiter (where is this?) to narrow your search to:

• Articles with full text (no citations are included in the search)

• Scholarly journals

• A specific journal or magazine

• Specific date or dates

• A cover story

• An article with images

When your search returns too few documents, use an expander (where is this?) to broaden your search:

• For related words such as synonyms and plurals

• By searching within the full text

• Include "and" between your search terms

Use Boolean:

• Type and between each search word and the search result will include articles that contain all the words you typed. For example, the search airport and security retrieves all articles that contain both words.

• Type or between each search word and the search result will include articles that contain at least one of the words you typed. For example, the search college or university retrieves all articles that contain either the word college or university.

• Type not before a word and the search result will include articles that contain all the words you are looking for but not the word preceded by not. For example, the search buffalo not bills would exclude any articles about the Buffalo Bills.

Capitalization does not matter.

Punctuation is disregarded. For example, the search mayor's race retrieves all articles with the words mayors and mayor's.

Insignificant words - such as a, an, as, the, and, of, for example, are excluded from a search.  For example, the search kingdom of heaven retrieves all articles that contain the words kingdom and heaven.

Words included in quotes are searched as a phrase. For example, the search "star wars" will retrieve articles that contain the words star and wars when they are printed together and in the same order. An article containing the sentence "To predict future wars, the leader would consult the North star" would not be retrieved.

Use a ? in a word to represent a single letter. For example, the search wom?n retrieves all articles that contain either woman, women, or womyn.

Use a * to find different endings for a word. For example, the search capital* retrieves all articles that contain either capital, capitals, capitalism, capitalist, and capitalize.

Use the Advanced Search for more options, including Boolean searches by specific fields. (Where do I find Advanced Search?)