Text in the Humanities: How to combine keywords

Usually, when searching for information, more than one keyword is required. To combine keywords, use one of these:

AND; OR; NOT

AND: All the keywords will be present in the result list. AND usually limits the search results

For example:  Internet AND “political participation” AND democracy

OR : Any of the keywords used will be present. It broadens your results by connecting two or more synonyms.

 For example:  “social media” OR facebook OR instagram

NOT: if you want to exclude a keyword from your result list. NOT may exclude relevant findings from the result list.

For example: "social media" NOT blogs

Quotation marks “…….”

two or more words that form a single concept/phrase

For example “South Africa”   

                       “attention deficit disorder”

Truncation *

Use truncation for words with the same stem

For example: work* = work, works, worker, working, etc.

Parentheses / Brackets

Eg (cars OR motors OR busses) AND driving

The results will contain driving and either or all of the words cars OR  motors OR busses

Wildcarts

Use a symbol for one letter of a word

Example:

behavio?r = behaviour or behavior

Colo!r = color OR colour

For example: See keyword search strings below:

(social media OR INTERNET OR TWITTER OR FACEBOOK OR INSTAGRAM) AND (“CIVIC ATTITUDES” OR “CIVIC VALUES” OR VALUE* OR ATTITUDE* OR “POLITICAL BEHAVIOUR” OR “POLTICAL BAHAVIOR“ OR “POLITICAL PARTICIPATION” OR PARTICIPATION) AND (DEMOCRAC* OR E-DEMOCRACY)

(“HIGH CONFLICT COUPLES” OR “LOWER INCOME” OR “LOW INCOME” OR LIC )  AND (EFFECT OR SYMPTOM* AND ANXIETY OR “ATTENTION DEFICIT DISORDER”)  AND CHILDREN

FATIGUE AND FIBROMYALGIA AND ("LIVED EXPERIENCE" OR EXPERIENCE*) AND (FAMILY OR PARENTS)