Boolean Searching on the Internet
Boolean! No, this is not a word you want to shout out at children on Halloween, looking to scare them with particular charm and style. Although the mere mention of this word can strike trepidation in those who do not know its meaning, it actually refers to a style of very powerful and streamlined Internet searching that can improve the results that you net on a regular basis.
In the 19th century, George Boole, a famous mathematician, worked tirelessly on devising a form of logic and thinking that could group certain criteria together while excluding other criteria that the searcher could deem unnecessary or unwanted for a particular query. In the modern age of the World Wide Web, Boole's techniques and ideas have served to improve Internet searching by promoting the inclusion and exclusion of certain documents and results through the implementation of surprisingly simple vocabulary choices.
If you have any experience at all with Venn diagrams, then Boolean diction will be a piece of cake for you, complete with the cherry on top. Notice that this comparison technique uses two circles to form groups of categorization.
Along that theme of categories, the primary words for Boolean technique are AND, OR, and NOT.
AND is an operating word that will winnow down the results of a given search by grouping items together. This will end up yielding results of a search that employ all of the terms that you have chosen to highlight and bring attention to.
OR, in contrast, will make a given search more expansive, by making sure to incorporate results into a search that feature any of the words of that search, in any combination. This is the recommended word from the Boolean lexicon to use when you are on the lookout for a search that will show results for multiple spellings, versions of a word, or synonyms associated with that word.
Lastly, NOT. As you can guess, any word(s) that follows NOT in your search term will be excluded from the results. Try searching "Meryl Streep NOT Prada."
Additional Sources
- Internet Tutorials: Boolean Searching on the Internet. This is an exceptional and concise introduction to the art of effective Boolean searching that we cannot recommend highly enough. It will walk you through all the elementary techniques and skills you need to quickly become a budding Boolean pro.
- Learn How to Use Boolean Search Operators. This is another simple and clear introductory resource that Boolean beginners can make quick and efficient use of when starting out. It gives you some nice context as to the history of Boolean search methods and links to several other great references.
- Basic Search Tips and Advanced Boolean Explained. Once you have digested the above two pieces and given some of the sample searches and tools a few good tries, you can then progess onward to this more advanced resource to further improve your search results. It does quite an excellent job of explaining higher-level Boolean technique to you in a way that is palatable and that you will retain.
- The Boolean Machine by Rockwell Schrock. Rockwell Schrock is a very gifted instructor specializing in Internet technique and currently in the midst of finishing his master's degree at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. His Boolean Machine lets you actually see how myriad components of Boolean technique work and function in real time.