Boolean for Dummies

I'm now well versed in the two primary online legal databases Lexis and Westlaw. Over the past couple of weeks, we've received training in how to perform legal research using both databases. Basically, these services provide statutes, cases, regulations, and reference materials for nearly all jurisdictions in the US court systems. While it did provide knowledge useful for more efficient online legal research, I nearly fell asleep during the lecture discussing Digital Logic. For approximately 20 minutes of each session, we discussed Boolean logic and how it pertains to online searching. Apparently, they don't explain the differences of AND, OR, NOT, etc. in the liberal arts curriculum. It seems simple to me, but maybe that's because mastering these concepts is essential in the world of computing. Not to knock the intellect of the majority of my fellow peers, but including AND in a connector search should be obvious that it will return only documents containing both words included in the search. Likewise, OR should return documents containing either word/phrase. Simple, eh? Does it really take a rocket scientist to grasp these concepts? With today's usage of the Internet, I find it necessary that someone teach these educated folks elementary logic. My time would have been much better spent discussing more of the specifics of each service. Tonight lacks humor, so I'll be sure to go out on a limb on some future posts.