Searching | Evaluation | Ethical Use
Locating Resources on the Web
Tip #4 Use the operator to narrow your search.
Quotation marks " " force a search engine to find the exact phrase within the quotations.
Other operators, such as + and - may also be useful. Most search engines interpret the space between terms as the + (Boolean AND) operator. But there are still older search engines that may require the + or AND.
The minus - operator (Boolean NOT) insures that the keyword will not be in the documents returned by your search. Use the minus operator only when you are confident you will not eliminate useful results by excluding specific terms.
The quotation marks ( " " ) operator will focus your query more precisely by creating a phrase of two or more terms that will be treated like a single term. Only documents containing all the terms in exactly the same order as in your phrase will be returned for your query--so be certain that the phrase you are looking for is likely to used on the page you need. The most common use of quotation marks is to designate people's names or other proper nouns, however the unique combination of Proper Nouns is often specific enough to be used without quotation marks. Quotation marks are important in situations where one or more of the words alone is likely to retrieve many documents not related to your topic (e.g., words with multiple meanings).
Combining operators brings power to your research. When you enter keywords into the query field of most search engines, the system will find documents containing any of your keywords. As a result, you get documents, sometimes highly ranked documents, that do not contain all your search terms. When a search engine returns millions of hits rather than hundreds, it is time to consider using operators.
Currently, most search engines treat a space between terms as the + operator. The real power in a query with more than one word depends on how specific or unique each term is. Too many keywords (resulting in lots of ANDs) actually eliminates many pages that contain relevant information but not all the search terms.
Another way to make your search more precise is to use the minus ( - ) operator. This operator can be used to exclude terms from the results of your query. When you searched earlier you probably got hits for a number of companies seeking to sell you various 'Artists' versions of the song America the beautiful. Try this syntax to eliminate company websites: +"America the Beautiful" -com . Be certain that you don't eliminate a term that could be contained on a page with information you need. Use the minus operator sparingly.
Online Learning Module: Operators