Skip to Main Content

General Chemistry: CHEM 1031

This guide is for General Chemistry: CHEM 1031. Use the resources and information on this guide to help with your course assignments

Library Search

Library Search is your gateway to discover books, journal articles, and much more at Temple University Libraries. Additional information can be found in our Library Search FAQ's.

Search Tips

Boolean Operators: Three little words to help your search

AND between search terms retrieves both terms, OR between terms brings back either term, and NOT before a term eliminates results that have that term

Quotes: Searching Exact Phrases

In the above section, you see we put “climate change” and “global warming” in quotes. Doing this in your search will bring back only that exact phrase. 

  • A search for just climate change could catch results like “...the climate towards social change...”
  • A search for just global warming could catch results like “...the global community is warming to the idea...”

Truncation and Wildcards: Get* alternate forms of word*

There are a few different ways to use truncation symbols or “wildcards” to search for different forms of a word. Here’s an example:

A search for gene* will bring back all these words:

  • gene
  • genes
  • genetic
  • genetics
  • genetically

But beware! Make sure you put your wildcard character in just the right spot. The same search will also bring back these words:

  • general
  • generally
  • generic
  • genesis

See more about what truncation can do for you in this great tutorial from Colorado State.

Nesting/Parentheses

You can use nesting (parentheses) to help organize a more complicated search. For example, you could search for:

“genetically modified” AND (crop* OR food) NOT (corn OR maize)

to get results about genetically modified food or crops that do not talk about corn, aka maize.

Subjects: Chemistry