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Tips for Combining Terms
- Avoid typing questions; instead, only type a few key words.
- Example: marijuana AND academic performance
- Search for an exact phrase by enclosing it in quotation marks. This will eliminate articles where the words are only used separately. Specifying an exact phrase may eliminate articles that use a similar phrase instead.
- Example: marijuana AND "academic performance"
- Discover@UMSL and most library databases combine words and phrases with Boolean operators (AND, OR, and NOT). As you can see from the diagram below, AND will reduce the number of results and OR will expand the number of results.
- AND should be used to connect components of your search that don’t have an explicit relationship.
- OR should be used to connect related terms, and you’ll want to enclose multiple related terms within parentheses;
- Example: (marijuana OR cannabis) AND (“academic performance” OR “academic achievement” OR “grade point average”).
- It’s usually best to avoid using NOT since it may exclude articles that mention your term but aren’t focused on it.
