We have seen that the Boolean Operator (database command) AND is useful because it helps reduce the number of results obtained by displaying only those results that have both search terms included in this index list.

However, we run into a small problem. Sometimes we don't want to reduce the results list, but expand it to include alternate words with the same meaning. The English language is rife with such synonyms. Think for a moment -- how many words can you think of that mean the same thing as "money"? How about cash, dollars, bucks, dough, scratch, change, greenbacks -- even perhaps liquid assets? If you asked a database to look for index terms for money alone, that is the only word the computer would match. (Databases are very literal.) None of those other words would be checked. They would be ignored.

If you want to search one concept with many alternate words, we need a Boolean command that will allow us to do this quickly and easily.

The Boolean Operator command word you need for this situation is OR.

Please see that attached Venn diagram of how the command word OR can be used in a database search.

As you can see from the diagram, the command OR allows us to tell the database to display results of all articles if found with either of the search terms in the index. This returns a much larger results list than either term would have returned individually, but ensures you pick up any variation in words used to describe your search.

(Example shown: United States OR America -- two disparate words that symbolically refer to the same country.)

Attachments

Boolean Operator Command Word OR