Aside from the medical issues being researched during this pandemic, this is also useful for conducting rhetoric, communications, or economic impact studies, to name a few. Use it as a tool to get a better idea of the types of media or scholarly outlets using which terms, and how that might influence your own research. Using OR can be a useful tool when trying to 'stitch' together terms one has come across that all attempt to (or claim to ) refer to the same concept. Note how using OR will often yield more results than an AND search using similar search terms, but the real value comes in discovering source that otherwise would have been much more difficult to locate. (coronavirus) OR (COVID-19) OR (SARS-COV-2):.In a Google search, for example, try the following as separate searches: Perhaps turning to an authoritative source, such as the World Health Organization, is a good first step in developing a baseline vocabulary that can be curated and refined as more terms are encountered throughout the process.Īccording to the W.H.O on one of their guidance pages, there is reference to a virus, severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2, or (SARS-COV-2), that causes the coronavirus disease (COVID-19). Since these are related, it stands to reason some publications might've used EITHER term, or perhaps both, when discussing the pandemic. Depending on where one looks for information, the virus/disease/pandemic will be referenced in multiple ways. Within this large result list, there will be content referencing specific pandemics, but anything remotely mentioning coronavirus.which may not be very efficient. Using an OR search indicates the researcher has a baseline understanding of their terms and wants to see information in a context where either term used will suffice. Trying a simple Google search on coronavirus will, without a doubt, retrieve a lot of information. Adding AND to a search string will indicate that the researcher is looking for content that mentions ALL of the terms indicated, which might yield a more narrow result list. Boolean searching simply means using terms such as AND, OR, NOT to develop connections between specific words or phrases in order to retrieve more relevant results.

Top 25 boolean search strings