Wait, there's more! Try the following techniques to make your searches even better.
Phrase Searches
Often keywords are more than one word. Most search engines let you put quotation marks around these so only results with the exact phrase are listed.
"rap music"
"cell phone"
Truncation
Shortening a keyword to its basic root and adding a special character (usually an asterisk "*" or "?") at the end will tell the computer to search for variations on the word.
Searching for politic* will find:
POLITICS, POLITICAL, POLITICIAN
Note: Check the search engine help screens to see if this can be done. It's most common on subscription databases.
Parentheses
Combines concepts and techniques. The search engine will search for what's grouped or nested inside the parentheses first.
("rap music" OR "hip hop") AND censorship