Global Social Change

Use AND and OR to make database searches more effective.

Connect different terms with AND

• war AND children
• women AND migration

Connect similar terms with OR

• emigration OR immigration
• transnational OR international

Search for variant endings with truncation:

The truncation symbol is usually an asterisk * in the databases.

• global* = global, globalize, globalization, etc.
• immigra* = immigrant, immigration, immigrate, etc.

Combine AND and OR in a single search, using parentheses to group your terms, like an equation. This is sometimes called nesting or grouping:

• Thailand AND (women's rights OR women's movement)

Note that some databases require quotation marks around any terms you want to search as a phrase:

• "water resources" AND "El Salvador"

Subject terms: When you find a relevant article, look at the subject terms (sometimes called descriptors) that are used to describe it. They may be useful in a new search.

Try using some of these search words in Lesley Library's @LL Search, your one stop shop for searching within all of Lesley's holdings for relevant material. For more search tips, look here.