AND requires all specified words to appear in each item
e.g. Old Testament AND postcolonial*
Corinthians II 10-13 AND war
OR requires any of the specified words to appear in
each item
e.g. Torah OR Pentateuch
NOT excludes terms not desired
e.g. predestination NOT Calvin*
Combining ideas
e.g. Leviticus AND (homosexual* OR gay*)
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prioritize your concepts to begin your search with
the most important one
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consider additional concepts to use, if necessary, to
reduce or expand retrieval
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if the database has a thesaurus, either online or
print, check for suggested terms