Choosing your Search Terms

Enter search terms on separate lines to instruct the database to search for the combined terms.  Boolean Operators (AND, OR, NOT) are useful tools for building your search:

• Quotations marks (search for specific phrases or names)

  • "Robin Wall Kimmerer", "Enviromental Protection Act", "environmental rhetoric" 

• Asterisk * (widen your search results) 

  • enviro* = environmentalists, environmentalist, enviromentalism, enviroment

• AND (narrows your search)

  • argumen* AND rhetoric AND enviro* (see this search in UofT LibrarySearch)

  • "urban planning" AND wildlife  

• OR (widens your search)

  • "natural environment" OR nature OR wilderness

  • (urban OR city) AND wildlife 

    • Using the brackets around the keywords joined by OR instructs the database to search for both or either of those terms. 

  • email OR e-mail

    • Keep watch for different types of spelling (use of hyphens, US vs UK/Canadian spelling, etc.). You may need to run more than one search.  

Search using Subject Headings

1. Go to UTL LibrarySearch Advanced Search

2. Enter any of the Subject Heading found below exactly as it appears in the Search Box 

3. Choose Subject from the Search Filters drop-down menu on the left

4. Press Enter or click on the Magnifying Glass icon

For additional information on subject headings and LibrarySearch, visit How can I use subject headings to improve my searching?

Subject Headings

Every item in LibrarySearch has a record. Each record has subject tags to describe the topic of the item. When using Topic Search, you are retrieving everything linked to one subject tag. This is helpful if you want to retrieve all items under one subject or "topic". 

First input your search terms:

Next, choose the most relevant result and open the full record by clicking the title:

Once you have opened the full record, scroll down to the "Details" section:

There is a lot of information in this section, but the part you need is next to the heading "Subject":

Of the four subjects assigned to this book, "Women video gamers" is probably the closest to the topic of women and gaming. To view other items assigned to the same subject, just click Women video gamers and a new set of search results will appear that are all assigned the same topic phrase.

Also look at the subjects assigned to the new results. You may find a related subject that fits even more closely with your topic. For instance, the book highlighted in the following image is described with the subject "Women video gamers", but also the subjects: