Using Education Research Complete

Boolean operators are tools that can allow you to broaden or narrow your search. 

AND

The AND operator will narrow your search when used between your search terms. A search for kindergarten AND literacy will return results that include both kindergarten and literacy. 

OR

The OR operator will broaden your results. It is especially useful when searching for words that have common synonyms. A search for assessment OR grading will return results with either or both terms. 

NOT 

The NOT operator will narrow your results. NOT allows you to exclude a word or phrase from your results. A search for literacy NOT phonics will return results for literacy that don't also discuss phonics. 

Combining Operators

Much like in math, you can combine Boolean operators using parenthesis. When there are parenthesis, information within the parenthesis is interpreted first, then information outside the parenthesis next. This overrides the usual search precedence, in which AND is interpreted before OR. 

For example, a search for (kids OR children) AND literacy will return results that include either the terms kids or children and the term literacy. A search for kids OR children AND literacy will return results that contain children and literacy, or results that just contain the term kids, because the AND operator will be interpreted before the OR operator. 

Truncation

The truncation symbol, *, allows you to search for alternate endings to a word. For example, a search for librar* will return results for library, libraries, librarian, and librarians. 

You can also use * in the middle of a word to account for alternate spellings, or related words. For example, a search for tox*y will return results for toxicity, toxicology, toxicologically, and toxigenicity. A search for wom*n will return results for women and woman. The * will stand in for any number of characters, so be careful of similar words when using this function. If you search for col*r, you will get results for color and colour, but also for collector. 

Remember that Education Research Complete will automatically search for plurals, so it's not necessary to use truncation just to capture plurals. 

Wildcards

Similar to truncation, wildcards stand in for other characters. The * truncation can stand in for any amount of characters, but the ? and # wildcards stand for certain numbers of characters. 

The ? wildcard stands in for one additional character, but not zero. For example, a search for organi?ation will return results for both organization and organisation. 

The # wildcard can stand in for either zero or one character. For example, a search for colo#r will return results for both color and colour. 

Remember that Education Research Complete automatically does searches for common alternate spellings, so wildcards are often unnecessary in those cases. If you search for "color", the database will automatically also search for "colour". If you search for "colo#r", you will get the same results as if you had just searched for either spelling. 

Quick Tip!

Education Research Complete will automatically search for plurals and common alternate spellings, so no need to worry about those in your search!

One way to make search results more relevant is with proximity searching. 

Near Operator N#

Using the N operator will return results where your search terms appear within your specified range from each other, in any order. A search for "early N4 literacy" will return results that include phrases such as "early childhood literacy", "literacy in early childhood", "early indicators of future literacy", or "early research into literacy". 

Within Operator W#

The W operator is very similar to the N operator, except that the results will only include your terms in the order you searched them. For example, a search for "elementary W3 assessment" could return results for phrases such as "elementary guided assessment", or "elementary methods of assessment", but would not return results for "assessment in elementary school".