Additional Search Tips

Enclose multi-word terms in quotation marks

When we enclose a search term in quotations (for example "Circuit Design"), Knovel will search for resources that contain only the exact phrase "Circuit Design." Our previous search (Circuit Design, without quotations) returned resources that mentioned Circuits and Design, but not our precise term.

Use AND, OR, & NOT to join terms

AND and OR are boolean operators, special words used to construct complex searches in a text box. If you are interested in works that mention only both terms, use AND (for example, "Circuit Design" AND PCB). If you are interested in terms that contain one or more terms in a list, use OR (for example, "Circuit Design" OR PCB). I fyou are interested in excluding a term, use NOT (for example, "Circuit Design" NOT PCB). See the image below for a visual example:

An illustration of the functions of the AND, OR, and NOT operators.

Use asterisk (*) to replace multiple characters and question mark (?) to replace a single character:

* and ? are wildcards, characters that allow for simultaneous searching of multiple terms. They behave as follows -- asterisk (*) replaces multiple characters in a search term (for example, weld* will search for weld, welder, welding, etc.); question mark (?) replaces a single character in a search term (for example, organi?ation will search for organization, organisation, etc.)