Skip to Main Content

Advanced Searching: More Detailed Searching

More complicated search methods

This page will show you how to conduct more precise, detailed searches using more complicated advanced searching methods. 

These are the methods you would use if you were conducting a systematic literature review, a literature review for a research proposal, or a similar piece of work. 

Remember to take note of your exact search terms, methods, and pathways so that you can accurately report them in your final piece of writing.

Combining or eliminating search terms

You can use the words AND, OR, or NOT in the search box to add or exclude words and terms from your searching. 

For example, if you were searching for management and recruitment

AND narrows the focus of the search results. Searching management AND recruitment will show only results where both words are present, rather than results that only have either word.

OR broadens the search results and will show you results where either management or recruitment are present. 

NOT excludes any word(s) that come after it. For example, management NOT training.

These words have to be in all caps in order for the search engine to read them as search tools and not a random word to search. 

Using the advanced search function can give the same result - you just select what function (AND, OR, NOT) you want from the dropdown box. 

Feedback Poll

We would love feedback if this page was useful to you! If you have additional questions please reach out to us and we can try our best to help.

Was this page helpful?
Yes: 13 votes (100%)
No: 0 votes (0%)
Total Votes: 13

Broadening your search

Although some databases will automatically search for different spellings of words, usually they will just search for the exact letters you type in. Use wildcard and truncation symbols to take control of your search and include variations to widen your search and ensure you don't miss something relevant.

1. Truncation using an asterisk *

Using an asterisk * will show you different endings to words.

For example, searching for agricultur* will find agriculture, agricultural, agriculturalist, and so on.

1. Wildcards using a question mark ?

Using a question mark will replace a single letter in a word (whereas the asterisk replaces the ending of a word). It is also handy to make sure different spellings are included between British and American English. For example:

Searching for wom?n will find woman or women
Searching for colo?r will find colour or color

The next step: brackets

You can combine several of the above methods in to one search string. For example:

management AND recruitment NOT training OR development

However, you can clean up this search by utilising brackets ()

Use brackets to group the search terms/functions you want done first. 

So if you want the search engine to first search for management AND recruitment, put some brackets around those words:

(management AND recruitment) NOT training OR development

Then, to tell the search engine that you want training and development excluded equally, put some brackets around them:

(management AND recruitment) NOT (training OR development)

You can also double bracket to combine two searches. For example, the following will search for:

Management or leadership

  1. Within that it's searching for management without training or development
  2. While searching for leadership as an alternative search term at the same time.

(management NOT (training OR development)) OR leadership)

This can be a bit tricky to understand and master. Try experimenting with where you put the brackets and see how that changes your search results. 

Alternatively, you can use advanced search forms to build the search for you. Details on how to do this can be found in the "Advanced search form" tab here.