Most databases will offer users both a basic search option (and this is usually the default that you will first see) and an advanced search option (for when you want to be a bit more particular about what you're looking for).
Advanced searches often organise themselves using a search mechanism called a Boolean Operator. This comes from mathematics where the words (in capitals): AND, OR, NOT tell the database or the search engine that you don't want them to look for those words. Instead, you want them to perform a particular action in relation to the words or phrases on either side.
Fortunately, most databases will guide you to selecting one or other of those options (see the Library Plus example under the Advanced Searching tab for more information). Unfortunately, most search engines will expect you to put them in yourself).
But what do they mean?
AND - if you use this operator, e.g. nurse AND mentoring --> you're asking to be shown only those results where the words nurse and mentoring appear together. They both have to be in the article's record in order for that record to make it into your results.
OR - if you use this operator, e.g. nurse OR dentist --> you're asking to be shown any results that either contain the word nurse or the word dentist. Either, or both, of these words can appear in a record in order for it to make it into your results.
NOT - if you use this operator, e.g. nurse OR dentist NOT pharmacist --> you're asking to only be shown results that contain either nurse or dentist (or both) and anything that mentions pharmacist--even if it also mentions nurse or dentist--has to be excluded.
Using these search operators gives you more control over your search and will hopefully narrow down the number of results you get as well
If you want to look for a particular phrase, e.g. National Health Service or assistant practitioner, then to make things a little more precise you can tell the resource (database/ search engine) that you want these words to be next to each other and not in different parts of the same record by putting speech marks around your phrase: "National Health Service" or "assistant practitioner"
Make sure that you use SHIFT +2 on your keyboard rather than the single quote marks 'like this' - if you use the wrong ones your search won't work.
Truncation is where you get the database to do the work of finding alternate endings of words for you instead of you typing in all of the possible variations that might come up.
So, for example, you might want to look for articles that mention: nurse, nurses, nursing, nursed etc. without having to type all of those words in. In many databases you can use a truncation symbol to tell the database that it has to look for every word that starts with all of the letters before the symbol no matter what the endings are. Quite often (but not always - it varies from database to database) the truncation symbol is an asterisk *.
That means that nurs* would find nurse/ nurses/ nursing/ nursed and so on.
You will also need to consider limiting your results by: