Operator/Modifier

Description

Example

and

Look for documents containing both term A and term B. 
Helps you narrow your search.

food and nutrition

or

Look for documents containing term A and for documents containing term B. 
Helps you broaden your search.

food or nutrition

not

Look for documents containing term A, that do not have term B.

nursing not shortage

near/n

Look for documents where term A appears close to term B, in any order.
Use “n” to specify the number of words apart – “3” means within 3 words.

nursing near/3 education

pre/n

Look for documents where term A appears before term B.
Use “n” to specify the number of words apart – “3” means within 3 words.

nursing pre/3 education

exact

Look for your exact search term in its entirety. 
Used primarily for searching specific fields, like Subject. 
For instance, a search on su.exact(“higher education”), will return documents with a subject term of “higher education”, but not documents with a subject term of “higher education funding”.

su.exact(“higher education”)

< 

Less than. 
Used for numeric fields like publication date.

YR(<2005)

> 

Greater than. 
Used for numeric fields like publication date.

YR(>2005)

<=

Less than or equal to. 
Used for numeric fields like publication date.

YR(<=2005)

>=

Greater than or equal to.
Used for numeric fields like publication date.

YR(>=2005)

-

Used to search for ranges in numerical fields, such as Publication Date.

YR(2005-2008)