Q. How can I use quotation marks for phrase searching?
Using quotation marks for phrase searching will help to ensure that the results you get back in a search engine are accurate.
When you search for a phrase like LGBTQ community equality the search engine will bring back any results that have those words in them. However, if you put quotation marks around the phrase, "LGBTQ Community equality”, the search engine will only bring back results that have all those words in them exactly in the order you have them printed. This can also be useful when you're searching for the title of a book or other resource.
Most Useful For
Finding highly relevant information on a topic--allows users to narrow down results based on the exact phrasing of keywords or topic
Searching for the title of a book or other resource, a person or place name, etc.
Cautions
May miss relevant resources if the phrase searched for is not used in the article exactly as printed
Some databases automatically apply phrase searching and others do not. You’ll need to try searching a couple of phrases with the use of the quotes around the phrase first to see if the database already has an inferred use of phrase searching.
For more information about phrase searching using quotes check out Strategic Searching or Boolean Operators for further information.