# 3. Recap search methods

As you will have learned from the online training Literature Research, it is not very effective to enter random search terms in any given database.

To find specific information on your subject, you will have to combine your search terms into a “search string”.

The techniques below will help you do this.

Phrase searching

Searching with double quotation marks will give you results that contain your search terms next to each other and in the order given by you.

Searching for the terms without double quotation marks will give you results that contain both terms but they may be in different sentences.

Example(s): "advertising campaigns", "digital marketing”, "project management", "customer journey".

Boolean operators

Use AND to narrow down your search results and retrieve records containing all of the words it separates.

Use OR to broaden a search and retrieve records containing any of

the words it separates. used for synonyms, related terms, plural/single and different ways of spelling

Use NOT to narrow down your search results and retrieve records that do not

contain the term following it. In Google you have to use a dash

(-) instead of NOT.

Building a search string

Building search strings is done by using one or more of the techniques above and combining them using parentheses. This allows you to search with a combination of (Boolean) operators.

Example(s): (”food retail” OR supermarkets) AND Netherlands NOT hypermarkets.

Tip! Type AND/OR/NOT in capitals. Using capitals identifies the term as a Boolean operator and will increase the readability of your search string.