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Sports: Databases and Repositories

Guide to resources in sports

Philosophy Databases and Repositories

Boolean Search Techniques

Database Search Tips

Spell words correctly

 Use keywords to search-These are the nouns or significant words in your research questions.

Use Boolean operators-These are words (connectors) placed between search terms to narrow or expand a search. They are: AND, OR and NOT.

  • AND-helps to narrow your search
  • OR-helps to broaden your search
  • NOT-helps to narrow your search


Truncation-This allows you to search the "root" form of a word with all its different endings by adding a symbol to the end of the word. e.g. bank* will yield results with words such as bank, banking, bankers and bankruptcy

Note. The asterisk * is the most common truncation symbol but there are others but databases vary. e.g. bank!  bank?  bank+

Check the help feature to ascertain the truncation symbol used.

Utilize phrase searching-It allows you to retrieve specific information from commonly used phrases. e.g. "social networking"