This tutorial on Search Strategies was developed using materials from the Ruth Lilly Medical Library.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Articles are not always the best resource for an information need. In many cases, books are preferable.
Boolean logic searching consists of individual terms or phrases connected with AND, OR and NOT. These broaden or narrow a search depending on the term used.
Using AND will retrieve
fewer results (ex. heart attacks AND aspirin)
OR will retrieve more results (ex. heart attack OR myocardial infarction)
NOT will exclude unwanted terms (ex. substance abuse NOT cigarettes).
Like a math problem, you can use nesting to run a complex search in most databases.
EXAMPLE - A comprehensive search using synonyms on the topic of MRSA treatment with antibiotics:
(MRSA OR Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus) AND (antibiotic* OR Clindamycin OR Daptomycin OR Doxycycline OR Linezolid OR Minocycline OR Tetracycline OR Trimethoprim-sulfamethoxazole OR Vancomycin)