If you’re searching for a phrase rather than just a single word, you can group the words together with quotation marks.  However, doing so will return only items with that exact phrase. For example, “nurse practitioner” will only provide results with that exact phrase.

Searching using commands (operators)

There are three basic Boolean search commands: AND, OR and NOT.

• AND

  Using AND in your search will provide results that contain all of the search terms which will have very limited results. For example: searching “nursing” AND “physicians” AND “Nurse Practitioners” will return only results that contain all three of those search terms.

• OR

  Using OR in your search will find one term or the other(s) which will return a large number of results. For example: searching “nursing” OR “physicians” OR “Nurse Practitioner” will return all results that contain any of those three search terms.”

• NOT

  Using NOT in your search will eliminate any results that contain that term which is a way to fine-tune and narrow your results. For example: searching “nursing” NOT “nurses” will return results related to nursing but will specifically not return results containing the term nurses. Please note, sometimes AND NOT is used in place of NOT but will serve in the same capacity.