GB320: Sporting Apparel and Goods Stores in the US -- Fall 2018 -- Sections 001, 002, 003 (Flynn, Grusby, & Shepherd; Houston & Amin): Finding Articles

Boolean Searching 

Boolean Searching is the cornerstone to an effective search strategy.  Boolean searching refers to searching using a combination of search terms connected by the three Boolean Operators: AND, OR, NOT.

• AND will make your search smaller.  If you are retrieving too many records on your topic, try adding another search term with the operator AND.   
  • For example: "sports apparel" and "Ecommerce"
• OR will make your search bigger. If you are retrieving too few records on your topic, try adding another search term with the operator OR.    
  • Examples: "Ecommerce" or "online shopping"
• NOT will exclude a word from your search results.  If you are retrieving too many records on an unrelated topic, try eliminating a word with the operator NOT.
  • Example "Ecommerce" NOT "brick and mortar"

Phrase Searching 

To search for two or more words in the exact order in which they are entered you should enclose the phrase in quotation marks "  ".     

Examples: "brick and mortar"

Truncation 

Truncation allows you to search the "root" form of a word with all its different endings by adding a symbol to the end of a word.  Truncation symbols vary by database (check the help screens or ask a Librarian), but are usually one of the below:

* (asterisk)             ! (exclamation point)               ? (question mark)

For example: wom* will search for woman, women,....

Field Searching & Limiters

Each database has a variety of predefined fields or limiters that you can search within.  Some examples of fields and limiters are:

• article title
• article abstract
• article text
• author
• publication title
• geographical location
• company name
• product name
• ticker symbol
• NAICS/SIC Codes
• date
• document type
• publication type
• scholarly or peer-reviewed