Using ‘AND’
A software tool to allow a user to look for information. This might be a web search engine, eg Google, Yahoo or Bing, or part of another computer program, eg an operating system. use the Boolean expression ‘AND’ to refine searches by combining two or more An important word that will help return accurate search results. in a search term.
If you were looking for films to watch at the cinema in Manchester today, you could use a search term with two keywords, ‘films’ and ‘cinema’. To the search engine, the search term would look like this:
- films AND cinema
The search engine would then look for any web pages that contain both keywords. This would narrow down the results, but you would find that many of them are not relevant as they would include cinemas from all around the country. Refining your search using two more keywords, ‘manchester’ and ‘today’ would give much more specific results. To the search engine, the search term would look like this:
- films AND cinema AND manchester AND today
From your refined results you could find a cinema close by and see what films are showing.
Because we combine keywords so often, search engines use the Boolean expression ‘AND’ automatically. You do not have to type it in – although it causes no harm to do so.