TTC Library "How To": Database Search Tips

Boolean Operators (AND, OR, NOT)

AND finds both terms, OR finds one or both, NOT finds one term, but excludes the other

Limit to Academic Journals

Limiting your search to Academic journals helps you eliminate news articles, book reviews, magazines and trade publications. 

Search by Subject

Limiting the search by subject will help you find articles with your search terms as a primary focus of the article.

Backup your Research

You can email an article, save it to Google Drive, print a copy, or save the Permalink. (See the green box in the image.)

• To access the Permalink, click the at the bottom of the green box in the image.
• Then copy the permalink. 

Boolean Operators

Use AND, OR, NOT to narrow down your search results

Truncation *

use the * to truncate a search term that may have multiple relevant endings.

ex. searching for child* will find results with the words: child, child's, children

Quotation marks

Put quotation marks around phrases to search for the phrase rather than the words separately.

ex. "physical therapy" will only retrieve results with the phrase physical therapy. 

Database Limiters  (Often found on the Advance Search Screen)

Use database limiters to narrow down your search results: full-text articles only, a certain date range, or only peer-reviewed articles, evidence based practice research