Legal Research Basics

Boolean Operators are words and symbols that allow you to broaden or narrow your search when using the search bar in a database or search engine. Below are the most commonly used, however, some databases will have additional operators unique to them.

• • AND or &: used to retrieve results containing all of the words that it separates.
    • For example, the search statement search AND seizure will retrieve only results that contain both the words search and seizure
  • OR: used to broaden a search and to retrieve records containing any of the words it separates
    • For example, the search statement search OR seizure will retrieve results that contain the word search or the word seizure, but not necessarily in the same document
  • NOT, BUT NOT, or %: used to narrow a search and to retrieve results that do not contain the term following it
    • For example, the search statement search NOT seizure will retrieve results that contain the word search, but not the word seizure
  • “ “: used by placing the exact phrase you are looking for within quotation marks to retrieve results containing that exact phrase
    • For example, the search statement “fourth amendment” will retrieve results that contain the exact phrase “fourth amendment” without retrieving results that use both words in different orders
  • (  ): used to create priority within the search statement. The terms or connectors within the parentheses are addressed first, similar to. algebra
  • !: used to find all variations on a root word
    • For example, searching object! will retrieve object, objects, objected, objection, objecting
  • /p: used to indicate that the words in a search statement must be found within the same paragraph
    • For example, the search statement search /p seizure will retrieve results where the word search appears within the same paragraph as seizure.
  • /s: used to indicate that the words in a search statement must be found within the same sentence
    • For example, the search statement search /s seizure will retrieve results where the word “search” appears within the same sentence as “seizure”
  • /#: used to indicate that the words in a search statement must be found within a specified number of words of each other
    • For example, the search statement search /3 seizure will retrieve results in which the words “search” and “seizure” appear within three words of each other. It does not matter which word appears first