IUCAT QuickStart: Operators and Punctuation

Customize your keyword search with operators and punctuation. See online IUCAT Help for a complete list and explanation of operators and punctuation. Below are the operators and punctuation used most often.

street same crime

street crime

Will find records with street and crime in the same part of the record. For Example, it would find the title "Looking at Crime From the Street Level." Same is the IUCAT default operator; if you type "street crime," the system assumes you meant to type "same" between the two words.

street adj crime

'street crime'

adj requires that the word street appears adjacent to and in front of the word crime. Single quotes ' ' may also be used to create a phrase.

children and poverty

Both words must appear in the record, but they do not have to be in the same part of the record. And helps to focus or narrow your search.

television or TV

One or both words must appear in the record. Or broadens your search and can be used for synonyms or variant spellings of a word.

caribbean not cuba

The first word -caribbean- must be present, but the second word -cuba- must not be in the record. Not narrows your search by excluding words.

comput$

will retrieve all terms beginning with the root letters comput including compute, computer, computes, computing, etc. $ is used at the end of a word

alcohol$2

will retrieve all terms beginning with the root letters alcohol followed by 0 - 2 characters, including alcohol, alcohols, alcoholic. It will not retrieve alcoholism.

wom?n

will retrieve the women or woman. ? takes the place of one character. It may be used in the middle of a word or at the end of a word.

(television or TV) and advertising

(television or 'motion pictures' or media) and stereotype?

Use parenthesis to preserve the logic of your search by "nesting." This is useful when combining like terms Searches contained within the parentheses will be conducted first and then combined with the terms outside the parentheses.