JRN 369: Advertising and PR Research (Dr. Ren): Search Tips

Use the connector word AND to search articles that contain all of your keywords.

• For example, searching Instagram AND misinformation would show you articles that contained both of your terms.

Use the connector word OR to search articles that contain either of your keywords. This is especially useful if one of your search terms could be searched in a different way.

• For example, searching young adults OR teenagers OR college students will show you articles that are likely written about the same population group

Combine the words AND/OR in your search to create more detailed searches. If you are connecting words using OR, put them in parentheses.

• For example: Instagram AND misinformation AND (teenagers OR young adults OR college students)

Use the connector word NOT to exclude certain keywords from your search results.

• For example, if I am searching for research on Barbie dolls, I might get many article results on the Barbie movie instead. I could search: Barbie AND doll NOT movie

Another quick way to search multiple versions of the same word all at the same time is to use truncation. This involves adding an asterisk, or star symbol, to the end of your search term. 

• Type all the letters of your term that would stay the same, and then add an asterisk. For example, searching psycholog* would show me article results that contain the words: psychology, psychologist, psychologists, etc. Instead of doing three different searches, I was able to search all the terms in one. 

If you are searching a keyword that is made up of more than one word, type the term in quotation marks to search the words together.

• For example, I am interested in research on college students and their mental health. Both of my keywords are two-word terms, so I would search: "college students" AND "mental health".
• This will exclude results that talk about other types of students, like high school or elementary students, and other types of health.