Boolean operators are simple words (AND, OR, NOT or AND NOT) used to connect your search term together to either narrow or broaden your set of results. The three commonly-used Boolean operators are
- AND - requires both search terms to be in each result returned (narrows search)
- OR - requires either search term to be in each result returned (broadens search)
- NOT - requires search term to be missing from results returned (narrows search)
Resources uses offer Boolean operators an option in their advanced searching and are a way of limiting, or increasing, the number of results of a search.
For example:
- Scotland AND Ireland will only return results that contain both Scotland AND Ireland
- Scotland OR Ireland will only return results that contain Scotland OR contain Ireland
- Scotland NOT Ireland will only return results that contain Scotland but don't contain Ireland
Use:
- Use AND to reduce the number of search results
- Use OR to increase the number of search results
- Use NOT to reduce the number of search results
