Nesting

You can make very complex searches by combining the use of AND, OR and NOT in a technique called nesting.

Examples of searches in a periodical index

A. education AND (internet OR web)

EXPLAINED: education is the require term in the article, but only one of the terms, internet or web, needs to be in the article.

 

B. (vehicles OR cars) AND traffic

EXPLAINED: traffic is the require term in the article, but only one of the terms, vehicle or cars , needs to be in the article

 

C. vehicles NOT (cars OR automobiles)

EXPLAINED: vehicles is the require term in the article, but any article with either term, cars or automobiles, it will be excluded from the results

 

D. commuting AND education AND (kids OR children)
EXPLAINED: commuting and education are required in the article, but only one of the terms, kids or children, needs to be in the article.

PRACTICE:

1. Still using EBSCOhost Academic Search Premier

2. Go to Basic Search

3. Try Example A. Next try Example A without the parentheses - look how your results differ.

4. Try Example C. Next try Example C and replace the NOT with AND - look how your results differ.

5. Try Example D. Since the result is small, lets change the search to commuting AND (kids OR children). Now you have more results.

As you can see some of the search phrases can be complex. Start with simple searches, but modify if you retreive too many or too few records.