Virginia Tech® home

Plant pathology, physiology, and weed science

Plant pathology is the study of plant diseases and pathogens and their management. Plant physiology is the study of plant function, growth, and development and plant responses to environmental stresses. Weed science is the study of weed biology, ecology,

Search Strategy Builder

The Search Strategy Builder is a tool designed to teach you how to create a search string using Boolean logic. While it is not a database and is not designed to input a search, you should be able to cut and paste the results into the standard database search boxes.

Write out your research question or topic thesis as a sentence.

  Concept 1 and Concept 2 and Concept 3
Extract the major concepts from your sentence above and enter them here.    

List alternatives for each concept.

These can be synonyms, or they can be specific examples of the concept.

Use single words or short phrases.

Find additional terms in abstracts and summaries of the articles, books, and other sources you find during initial searches.

 Search terms Search terms Search terms

or

or

or

or

or

or

or

or

or

or

or

or



Search Strategy Builder created by University of Arizona Libraries and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.