ENVI 40 - Critical Thinking and Evidence-Based Reasoning for the Environment (Martin, Fall 2025): Search Terms

When searching for information, you can narrow and broaden your searches using different search strategies. 

Learn more at:

Use quotation marks to search your term as a complete phrase. Use the asterisk * wildcard to search all variant endings of your word. For example:

Exact phrase:

• "university sustainability"

Expanding your search with similar terms using OR:

• "local food" OR locavore
• "food cart*" OR "food truck*"

Narrowing your search by combining concepts with AND:

• "sea otter*" AND "marine reserve*"
• "waste reduction" AND recycl*
• "energy efficiency" AND (college* OR universit*)
• "solar panel returns" AND "power grid"

Creating a more complex search combining AND and OR:

• "genetically modified foods" OR "GMO foods" OR (GMO AND food*)
• vegan AND (diet* OR food*)
• "water import*" AND ("Southern California" OR "Los Angeles" OR "San Diego")