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ESS 205 -- Introduction to Physical Geology (Fall 2018): Basic Search Techniques

Searching

Mastering some basic search techniques can improve your results and save you time.

Basic Search Techniques

Keyword searching--Watch this tutorial from the University of Missouri-St. Louis

Boolean operators (AND, OR, AND NOT) These words are used to combine your search terms. See the graphic to the right.

Truncation--Use the asterisk * to retrieve all variants of a word. For example, environ* will retrieve environment, environmentalist, environmental. But be careful! Env* will retrieve envelope or envelopes or envy. You will get many irrelevant items.

Phrase searching--If your search term is a phrase, e.g., physical geology, enclose the phrase in quotation marks. "Physical geology" is a more specific search than typing the words separately.

 

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