Skip to Main Content

Advanced Search Strategies

Advanced searching techniques to focus and control database search results while retrieving more relevant results.

Limits

Limits are search functions that allow researchers to narrow results based on a variety of options, including:

  • full-text only
  • publication date range
  • peer reviewed
  • source/type of publication
Type of Limit Action
Full-text Only Retrieves only PDF and/or HTML documents
Publication Date

Narrows or broadens results list to a specific date range
Peer Reviewd

Retrieves only Academic Journal articles
Source/Type of Publication

Narrows results to a specific type of publication (magazine, journal, book, newspaper, etc.)
  • Limits can be added pre- and post-search. Post-search will retrieve a sub-set of initial results. Depending upon the database, additional limits may be included for language, location, etc.
  • Multiple limits can be set for a single search, further narrowing the potential list of search results.

Fields & Field Searching

Databases are comprised of a series of records, representing each item in the database. All records are comprised of fields, representing each type of information contained in a record. All fields in a record are searchable.

Field searching limits the search to a single field.

Narrows the number of search results retrieved and provides context for your search.

Common Fields Specialized Fields
Author Abstract
Title People
Subject Company
Journal Name NAICS Code

Databases permit multiple field searches in conjunction with Boolean operators, e.g. search author field and subject field simultaneously:

  King, Stephen AU Author
AND horror SU Subject Terms
AND