Combining keywords with Boolean operators - The art of speaking Boolean [Voice-over] It’s Thursday morning. Search engines are obviously practical. That being said, it can be hard to find what you’re looking for. For a long time, Fred settled for typing words one after the other without really caring whether if the machine understood what he was trying to say. [Dialogues] Fred: Safari, Wiki./ Daddy needs a book./ Daddy needs a book/ that talks about Calvin and predestination./ Get ready… fetch! [Voice-over] Last Tuesday, the librarian tried explaining how machines work. He said: [Dialogues] Librarian: Machines, and more specifically search engines,/ have their own language./ For these critters/ to obey your every command,/ you have to speak their language./ And their language is Boolean./ In other words, the Boole language,/ because it always comes in twos./ You know, from Boolean algebra./ No, actually,/ it’s because it’s from an English mathematician,/ George Boole./ There you go./ It’s clearer now./ Got it. [Voice-over] As our librarian said, the Boolean language comes from the work of George Boole. It’s a language that allows you to use search engines in the most efficient way by using different search techniques that transform a question into a search query. Instead of simply typing a string of words, Fred should have used operators like AND, OR, NOT, and techniques like truncation-- using the root of a word to expand a search. Here is a list of the main operators and search techniques: AND: the two concepts will both appear in the results OR: one of the two concepts or both concepts will appear in the results NOT: the term that follows will not appear in the results The techniques: First, parentheses. You can use parentheses to refine your search. Truncation is used when you’re not sure of a word or when you want to include its plural form. Truncation is often signified by an asterisk (*), but that can vary depending on the search interface used. You can also use limits and filters, which allow you to reduce the number of hits according to various criteria (date, language, source type). Finally, for results containing exact expressions, use quotation marks. But be careful, all search tools do not work the same way. Read the user guide for each tool to learn about its specific features! You can also use an advanced search interface that will allow you to apply Boolean operators intuitively. [Dialogues] Librarian: So it’s all good!/ Did you find what you were looking for? Fred: No, but I’ll work on it.