Advanced online searching: How it works...and how to make it work for you.
When you do a search online, you're always searching some kind of database, an organized collection of information. Each item in the database has a record. Each record has fields, with information that describes the item. Let's imagine that we are including a frog in our database. The record for the frog might be something like this:
/Item Record 1
Critter Name: frog
Critter Type: amphibian
Color: green
Noise: ribbit, croak
Eats: flies
Concepts: Prince Charming, warts
End Item Record/
Search Tip 1: You can use fields to target your search. Instead of looking everywhere in the record, look only in a specific field, such as title, author, or subject. Field search options are often found on the "Advanced Search" screen of a database.
Despite all the advances in online searching, there are still only three basic search operations, represented by AND, OR, and NOT. They describe what happens during a search.
AND, or "all the words," narrows your search. Use it to combine two or more keywords. The more words, the narrower your search. So, in the search "mushroom and frog and fly," all three words must appear in the results.
Most (but not all!) online search tools automatically look for all the words you typed, in no particular order. This is the same as putting AND between all your search words. So, in most cases, your search "mushroom frog fly" is the same as "mushroom AND frog AND fly." WARNING! Some databases do not automatically use AND. For safety's sake, we recommend that you always type AND as part of your search statement!
Question: You should type "and" between your keywords:
A. Never
B. Always
C. Sometimes
The correct answer is B; it is safest to always type "and," because some library databases require it.
OR, or "any words," broadens your search. It is useful for finding multiple synonyms at the same time. So, the search "flower or frog" means that either of the two words must appear in the results. Another way to explain this is to say that at least one of the words must appear in the results.
Question: Using OR will help to narrow your search, true or false?
Answer: False. Because "or" finds any word, it helps to broaden your search. Think of "or" as the opposite of "and."
NOT, or "exclude this word," is the least common search operation. It removes an unwanted keyword from your results. So, the search "mushroom not frog" means the word following NOT (that is, frog) must not appear in the results.
Question: Which statement is true?
A. AND will narrow a search
B. OR will broaden a search
C. NOT will narrow a search
D. All of the above
The correct answer is D, all of the above.
You can combine AND with OR for more powerful searching. But if you do, you must always enclose your OR keywords inside parentheses. As an example: the search statement:
dieting and ( women or females )
differs from
( dieting and women ) or females
just as the statement
5 + ( 2 x 7 )
differs from
( 5 + 2 ) x 7
Depending on where you place the parentheses, the equation 5 plus 2 times 7 could equal either 19 or 49. So remember, your search statement may look like words, but to the computer, it's really a mathematical equation.
Question: Construct a search statement that will find the keyword violence, as well as at least one of these keywords: juveniles, children. Use "and" with "or."
Answer: any of the following statements would be correct:
A. violence and ( children or juveniles )
B. violence and ( juveniles or children )
C. ( juveniles or children ) and violence
D. ( children or juveniles ) and violence
Notice that the order of the terms does not matter so long as the parentheses are correctly placed.
Search Tip 2: Instead of individual words, you may need to look for an exact phrase, that is, a group of words with a special meaning. Enclose phrases in quotation marks to force a search for those words, in that order, next to each other. (Please Note: In this text-only transcript, quotation marks are often used simply to highlight particular words. But within a search statement, quotation marks have a very specific meaning!)
For example, if you type the search: business plan process, which usually also means: business AND plan AND process, your results might be something like this:
1. Business leaders plan for process management...
2. Plan for new business permit process now in place...
3. Help your business to plan for the future; process is key...
But if you change your search to "business plan" process, or alternatively, "business plan" AND process, your results would change:
1. Writing your business plan: a 4-step process...
2. The Business Plan and the planning process...
3. A business plan guide, process and preparation...
Question: An exact phrase is...
A. A group of words with a specific meaning, such as "global warming"
B. A complete sentence
C. Any group of words you use in a search
D. A single word with an ambiguous meaning
The correct answer is A. Regarding answer B: Technically, a complete sentence could be used as an exact phrase during a search, but it's usually not a good strategy.
You already know that the computer looks for the word you type. But what if your word has several common forms? If you type just one, you'll miss results that have the others. For example, if your keyword is "teen," you'll miss the keywords "teens, teenaged, teenagers."
Search Tip 3: You can search for multiple forms of a word using truncation, also called stemming. The truncation symbol (usually an asterisk *) stands in for all the letters that could follow the word stem. So if you use the keyword, teen*, you'll catch all forms of the word that begin with with four letters t-e-e-n, including teen, teens, teenaged, teenagers, and so on. The asterisk stands in for any other letters that could follow the stem.
Question: Which truncated keyword would retrieve all of these words: educate, educator, educational, education
A .educate*
B. educat*
C. education*
The correct answer is B; the other two answers do not have short enough "stems" to retrieve all the forms.
Question: Truncate this keyword to retrieve these forms: anesthesia, anesthesiology, anesthetist
Answer: anesthe* This is the longest possible stem for all three words.
Remember these powerful search options! Field searching: by title, author, or subject. Basic search operations: AND, OR, and NOT. Exact Phrase searching: multiple words in order. Truncation: multiple forms of one word.
You've reached the end of this tutorial unit.