Montgomery College Libraries, Nursing Academic Tutorial

Search Type: Keyword Anywhere

Searches entire record including title, table of contents, subjects, author, publisher.

Put plus signs ( + ) before essential keywords, asterisks ( * ) before important keywords: +nursing *geriatrics

Use quotation marks for phrases: "care plans" or "mental health"

Search Type: Keyword Boolean

This type of search requires that you construct a search expression. Search expressions have three elements:

Boolean Operators

AND tells the computer to search for both or all words:
    "care plans" AND geriatrics AND nursing

OR tells the computer to search for either or any of the words:
    epidermic OR epidermal

NOT tells the computer to drop all items that use the word or phrase that follow:
    nursing NOT "care plans"

Librarians caution against using NOT

A keyword is an important word about your topic. Keep in mind that there can be other words used to describe a topic than one you may be using.