Skip to Main Content

Guide to using JSTOR

Search tips

JSTOR Boolean Operators

You can use the following Boolean search operators to define the relationships between your keywords and narrow or broaden your search results.  JSTOR requires Boolean operators to be typed in all capital letters.

Operator Example Finds results with...
AND badgers AND tuberculosis both the word badgers and the word tuberculosis
OR badgers  AND  (tuberculosis OR TB) either the word tuberculosis or the word TB and the word badgers 
NOT badgers AND Tuberculosis AND vaccination NOT oral the words badgers, tuberculosis and vaccination but not the word oral

NEAR 5/10/25 

(Advanced Search)    

 badgers NEAR10 tuberculosis the word badgers within 10 word spaces of the word tuberculosis

The Advanced Search NEAR operator only works for single keyword combinations.  For example, you can search for badgers NEAR 5 tuberculosis but not for badgers NEAR 5 "bacterium bovis".

When your search query includes multiple Boolean operators, use brackets " ( )" to help the search engine group them in a way that is relevant for your research.

"badgers" OR "meles meles" AND tuberculosis finds all documents in which the phrase "meles meles" AND the word tuberculosis are both present as well as all documents in which the word badgers  is present.

 (badgers OR "meles meles") AND tuberculosis will only find documents that include the word tuberculosis in addition to either the word badgers  or the phrase "meles meles".

 

Searching for phrases

Use quotation marks around words to find documents where your search words appear together.

Bacterium bovis finds documents with the word bacterium and the word bovis.

"Bacterium bovis" finds documents with bacterium bovs in that exact order.

 

Other JSTOR Operators

Operator Example Finds results with...
~ (stemming) dostoevsky~

dostoevsky, dostoievski, dostoevsky, dostoyevski, dostoevskii, dostoevski

 

Stemming allows you to search for keywords with similar beginnings but different endings

.Warning: searches a huge number of words. Limiting the search to a specific field, for example the title field is recommended.

? (wildcard)

 

wom?n

organi?ation

woman, women

organisation, organization

The ? wildcard replaces a single character in a word
* (wildcard) vaccin*

vaccine, vaccinated, vaccines

The * wildcard replaces zero or multiple characters in a word
~ (n) (proximity) badger tuberculosis~5         the word badger and the word tuberculosis within 5 words of each other
^ (importance) badgers^5 tuberculosis

finding the word badgers in a document is five times more important than the word tuberculosis