What are the best Boolean search strategies to find information on a specific event or trend?

2 How to use parentheses and quotation marks?

Parentheses and quotation marks are two other tools that can help you refine your Boolean search. Parentheses allow you to group keywords and operators together and prioritize them over others. For example, "(climate change OR global warming) AND policy" will show results that have policy and either climate change or global warming, but not results that have policy and neither of the terms. Quotation marks allow you to search for exact phrases or terms that have more than one word. For example, "climate change policy" will show results that have the exact phrase, but not results that have policy and climate change in different order or separated by other words.

3 How to use modifiers and wildcards?

Modifiers and wildcards are two more ways of enhancing your Boolean search. Modifiers are symbols or words that modify the keywords or operators and add more specificity or flexibility to your search. For example, the asterisk (*) is a wildcard that can replace one or more characters in a word. For example, "polic*" will show results that have policy, policies, policing, etc. The tilde (~) is a modifier that can add synonyms or related terms to your search. For example, "climate change policy ~environment" will show results that have climate change policy and also terms related to environment, such as ecology, sustainability, etc. Wildcards and modifiers may vary depending on the search engine, so check the help page before using them.

4 How to use advanced search options?

Most search engines have advanced search options that allow you to customize your Boolean search even further. For example, you can limit your search by date, language, domain, file type, etc. You can also use filters or facets to sort your results by relevance, popularity, or other criteria. To access the advanced search options, look for a link or a button that says "Advanced Search" or something similar on the search engine's homepage or near the search box. You can also use special commands or operators that perform the same functions as the advanced search options. For example, you can use "site:" to limit your search to a specific website or domain. For example, "climate change policy site:gov" will show results that have climate change policy and are from government websites.

6 Here’s what else to consider

This is a space to share examples, stories, or insights that don’t fit into any of the previous sections. What else would you like to add?