Q. Why does the number of search results change when I use quotation marks around my search terms?

The number of results changes because quotation marks turn your search terms into a phrase search. Without quotes, the database searches for each word separately. With quotes, it looks only for sources where the words appear together and in that exact order.

Example:

• Searching Great depression finds over 19,000 results (words found separately).

• Searching "Great depression" finds about 6,300 results (exact phrase only).

For a quick explanation of phrase searching, you can watch this short video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ljs3hRJWtHQ