Proximity searching allows you to find results where your search terms appear close to one another (e.g. three words apart). The premise is that if your terms appear close together, the words are probably being discussed in the same context. Use proximity searching when you are getting too many results, especially ones that use your search terms, but not together.
Unfortunately there is not a universal way to construct a proximity search. Consult a database's "Help" menu to find out how to use this method in that specific database. ProQuest products use this shorthand:
"human rights" NEAR/3 "human rights", "human rights" n/3 "refugees"
Boolean Operators are simple words (AND, OR, NOT ) used as conjunctions to combine or exclude keywords in a search, resulting in more focused and productive results. Databases, when displaying their Advanced Search modality, always include these three words as optional connectors between separate search bars. If typing them in yourself within a single search query, they MUST BE CAPITALIZED to function properly.
AND
Use AND to narrow a search and retrieve records containing all of the words it separates, e.g. adolescents AND children will only find records containing both these words.
OR
Use OR to broaden a search and retrieve records containing any of the words it separates, e.g.adolescents OR children will find records containing adolescents only, children only, or both words.
NOT
Use NOT to narrow a search and retrieve records that do not contain the term following it, e.g. adolescents NOT children will find records that contain adolescents, but will not contain the word children
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