No Knives Better Lives Action Research Project

How to do a Boolean search

Searching the internet is useful for all aspects of modern life. Switch on your phone and the google search symbol

appears. Often when you search using key words there are thousands

of results. Now you can make your searches smarter. It’s quick & easy. Use it for the NKBL project, shopping online and exploring

the world around you.

Why we need to learn about Boolean searches

Make sure you include all of the words you want to search with quotation marks for each word:

E.g. “knife” “carrying”

This means you will search both knife and carrying.

Exact Word Search

“Knife” “carrying”

To search for two or more words in a certain order use quotation marks

E.g. “Knife crime” In this search knife and crime

must appear together.

Phrase searching

“knife crime”

Putting AND or the + symbol between search words means that it will search both A and B.

This is particularly useful for narrowing the search to certain areas

E.g. “Knife crime”+ Glasgow When you do this the search will

prioritise where both knife crime and Glasgow appear together in a document.

Using ‘AND’ or ‘+’

“Knife crime”+ Glasgow

An asterisk is used to find unknown words.

E.g. “violent *” In this example it would search all

terms pre-fixed with violent such as violent crime, or violent offence.

Wild cards *

“violent *”

In the last example the search will show up an American band called ‘violent femmes’ to exclude them from your search use AND NOT or ‘-’

E.g. “violent *” –”violent femmes” All references to violent femmes

are then removed. This is useful to remember when

you want to remove certain areas from your search (E.g. if you want to remove all references to England type –England)

Using ‘AND NOT’ or ‘-’

“knife crime”-England

Putting OR between search words means that it will search either A or B.

E.g. knife OR weapon When you do this only one of

them will appear in the search results

Using ‘OR’

knife OR weapon

You can do more complex searches by combining operators.

E.g. “knife” (crime OR carrying OR weapon)+Glasgow

This search will look for knife and only one of the three words in the brackets where they appear with the word Glasgow.

Combinations

“knife” (crime OR carrying OR weapon)+Glasgow

Remember to check it out with your youth worker if you have any questions.

Happy Searching!