Search Tips
Boolean Operators
Boolean operators can broaden or narrow your results. |
Use AND to retrieve results that contain both search terms: |
ancient AND egypt |
Use OR to retrieve results that contain any or all of your search terms: |
poverty OR development |
Using NOT to exclude irrelevant results: |
literature NOT review |
Truncation & Wildcards
Truncation and wildcards are used to search for any spelling of a word. |
Truncation: use an asterisk (*) to replace part of a word: |
child* = child, childs, children, childrens, childhood *plane = airplane, aeroplane, warplane |
Wildcards: use a question mark (?) to substitute one letter within a word: |
organi?e = organise, organize wom?n = women, woman |
Quotation Marks
Quotation marks can be used to retrieve more specific results. |
Consider searching for a specific phrase: |
"case study" "ancient history" "mental health" |
Consider searching for a specific spelling of a word: |
"honour" instead of "honor" "centre" instead of "center" "organise" instead of "organize" |
Fields
Use the field options in Primo Advanced Search to streamline your results. |
Business items only: |
Select the Subject field and search Business. |
Theses and Dissertations: |
Limit the Material Type to theses. Theses by Avondale University graduates can be isolated from these results. |
Refine by author: |
Use the Author field to search for items by a particular author. |
Parentheses
Parentheses combine keywords and control the order of boolean operators. |
Create more complex and focussed search queries: |
(ministry AND theology) AND youth (teaching OR education) AND primary (addiction NOT drugs) AND mental health |
Synonyms
If your keywords aren't yielding suitable results, consider different synonyms. |
spiritual: |
divine, devotional, supernal, sacred |
customer: |
client, consumer, patron, purchaser
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