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Library Research Tips- Boolean Operators: Boolean Operator- NOT

How to use NOT in searching

NOT narrows your search by excluding a search term 
The computer will only search for the term before NOT, and it'll leave out whatever term you put after NOT

Examples:
Elections NOT United States---this search would give us results on elections but will exclude results on elections in the United States
PCBs NOT Hudson River---this search would give us results on PCBs but will exclude results on PCBs in the Hudson River
Suicide NOT teenager---this search would give us results on suicide but will exclude results on suicide and teenagers 

A Venn Diagram will help us visualize this: 

 

What this looks like when searching

If we were to search for Whales in FoxHunt, we'd get 149,619 results on whales. This would include results with the term Killer Whales.

If we were to search for Whales NOT Killer Whales in FoxHunt, we'd get 139,813 results on whales. This would exclude results with the term Killer Whales. Using NOT helped us narrow our search. 

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