Not sure how to construct the right kind of search for finding specific eras, events, or people?  Try to focus your search on three keyword concepts:  Event, Text, and Topic.  See examples below.

Then, think about how you can combine your keywords using AND or OR.

So how does this translate?  Let's say you were writing a paper the origins of the U.S. Civil War. Some of the searches you could try include:

• States rights AND succession
• Abolitionist movement AND women
• West Indies OR Caribbean AND slavery

Use these to limit your search to an exact phrase.

Example: "Antebellum South" limits your search to the topic. (**Try Googling your name, or your professor's name, with and without question marks around the name).

In an "Advanced Search" option, you can connect search terms the following ways:

AND - narrows your search results by looking for two (or more) keywords at the same time.
Example:  "jacob astor" AND "fur trade" gets results that include both terms. Add a third term, for example, AND "explor*" to get even more specific results. (Note that "explor" has an asterisk - this gives you all variations of the word (see Truncation below).

OR - expands your search results by searching for more than one keyword at a time.
Example: "native american" OR "american indian" searches for results that include either term.

Tip: use ONE search term per search box.

A wildcard lets you search for different letters in a word. This can be useful to search for plurals and alternate spellings. A question mark is used in place of the letter.

Example: "wom?n" searches for "woman," "women," and "womyn."

You can use truncation to search for all the endings of a word in one search. Most search tools use the asterisk (*), but some use and exclamation point (!) or dollar sign ($). Check the help function if your search isn't working.

Example: Shakespear* searches for Shakespear, Shakespeare, Shakespearean, Shakespeare's, etc.