The three most commonly used operators are AND, OR and NOT.   They can be used to broaden or narrow your set of results and to exclude unwanted search terms and concepts.

For example:

If you want to find information on how do violent video games affect children and their brain development

AND will narrow your search returning results that contain all of your search terms 

violent video games AND children AND brain development

OR will broaden your search returning results that contain any but not all of your search terms. It is useful for finding synonyms or where different words are of equal value in your search 

kid OR kids OR child OR child OR children OR schoolchildren OR schoolchild OR school child OR school children

video games OR video game OR video gaming

NOT will narrow your search by eliminating words from your search results. It should be used with care as it can easily exclude relevant results.

behavioural problems NOT behavioural therapy

To search for two or more words in exact order, place double quotation marks " " around the words. The database will only return articles containing that specific phrase rather than articles containing each word found individually anywhere in the text.

Example:

The phrase "video gaming" will retrieve articles with all words as you typed them in with no other words in between. 

Truncation also known as stemming, is a technique that broadens your search to include alternative word endings and spellings.

To use truncation, enter the root of a word and put the truncation symbol * at the end.
The database will return results that include any ending of that root word.
For example:
child* = child, child's, children, children's, childhood

counsel* will retrieve both spellings = British English counselling  and  American English counseling

It is important not to shorten the root too much as it may retrieve too many irrelevant results. For example chil*  will bring up childless, chiller, chilly, and Chile.

Wildcard symbols are used to represent one character or letter inside of a search term. This search technique useful if a word is spelt in different ways but still has the same meaning. 

Common symbols include: 

! (exclamation mark)

? (question mark), and

# (number sign)

Example:

behavo!r = behaviour, behavior
p?ediatric = pediatric, paediatric

The symbols vary between databases so it is recommended to check the Help section.

You can search within a specific journal for your search terms, an author's name, or the article title.

To locate a journal:

• enter the journal title in Library Search
• click on the name of the database you wish to use to access the journal
• look for a place to select the year, volume, and issue that you require.