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COTC: ENGL 101 - Composition II

Resources for COTC English 113, Composition II courses.

Recommended Databases

Research Guides

Citation Help

Creating a Search

Booleans

AND - Commands a search engine to bring back both terms

OR - Commands a search engine to bring back either of the terms

NOT - Commands  a search engine to ignore all results with a certain word.

Quick tip: in Google, use a minus sign (-) instead of NOT

 

Quotation marks

Bring back exact search results.  "Ohio State University" means only OSU, no Ohio University too.

 

What to learn more? Review these sections of Choosing and Using Sources

Main Concepts

Precision Searching

Search Statements

How do I type a search?

DO:

Do choose main topic words

Do use precise words

Do use Booleans!

Do use synonyms

DON'T

Don't use full sentences or sentence fragments

Don't be too vague when you are looking for something specific

Unless part of a proper name, don't include: A, The, An, etc.