Skip to Main Content

Develop Database Search Skills

Keyword Techniques: NOT

When you are searching for a concept and keep getting articles that are on a different but related topic, use NOT to screen out the unwanted topic when searching in the database.

For example, say your topic is tuberculosis (a lung disease), but you don't want to research articles on Public Health because you are looking at the medical side of the disease. If you search for tuberculosis NOT "Public Health", that will remove all articles with the phrase Public Health in them. 

 

Circle with the word Tuberculosis and a separate, shaded chunk labeled NOT Public Health