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Introduction
to Searching Techniques
Boolean
Operators (AND, OR, NOT)
The AND operator retrieves only those records in the database which
have BOTH the first term and the second one. It is way of narrowing
your search.
The OR operator retrieves
all of the records which contain EITHER the first term or the second,
or both. It is way of broadening your search. It is typically used
with synonyms.
The NOT operator excludes
those records which have the word which follows the NOT. It is a way
of narrowing your search.
Nesting
(Using parentheses)
If you have a search statement which uses both AND and OR operators,
it is very important to use a technique called nesting which groups
certain parts of the search statement together, and lets the computer
know how to process it. Use parentheses to set off OR parts of the search
statement, in order to distribute what is outside of the parentheses.
For example, if you type
stress and (woman or
female)
into a database, you will
get all the records which have both the word "stress" and the word "woman"
in them, as well as all of the records which have both the word "stress"
and the word "female" in them.
If, on the other hand, you don't use the parentheses and just type in
stress and woman or female
you may end up with all of
the records that have "stress" and "woman" in them, but also all of
the records which just have the word "female" in them, whether the word
"stress" is there or not.
Truncation
Truncation broadens your search by looking for occurrences of any term
that begins with a root you specify. The most common truncation symbol
is the asterisk (*), but some databases use other symbols. For example,
Dow Jones uses the dollar sign ($), Lexis-Nexis uses the exclamation
point (!), and DIALOG uses the question mark (?).
If you type
teen*
into a database which uses
the asterisk for its truncation symbol, you will get all of the records
which have the term teen, teens, teenage, or teenager. Be careful
where you cut off your root word. You may end up with a lot of stuff
you don't want.
Phrase
Searching
Some databases will automatically treat a phrase you type in AS A PHRASE,
rather than just a bunch of words to be found anywhere separately in
the document. Most, however, will not. The methods for phrase searching
vary from database to database. In some, you put quotation marks around
the phrase to designate them as such. In others, you need to use "proximity
operators" (words such as adjacent, near, or with) to indicate that
they go together. An exploration of all of the methods of phrase searching
for the databases Furman has is beyond the scope of this page, so you
will need to check the database help files or ask at the Reference Desk
if you need assistance with phrase searching.
Field
Searching
Each record in a database consists of units of information called "fields."
Each field contains a specific kind of information, such as the name
of the author, the date of publication, special codes, etc. There is
some variation from database to database in terms of which fields are
included and what they are called. For example, the same field might
be called the "journal" field in one database, but the "source" field
in another. The most common fields included in databases are the title,
author, source (or journal), descriptor (or subject), and abstract.
The reason it is useful to understand these fields is that it can help
you narrow your search. For example, if you are looking for books BY
Maya Angelou, rather than ABOUT her, you will want to search for Angelou
in the AUTHOR field. If, however, you wanted books ABOUT her instead,
you would want to search in the SUBJECT field. The methods for field
searching vary from database to database, but often involve some sort
of checkbox or pulldown menu. If you are unsure of how to do field searching
in your database, please ask at the reference desk.
Putting
it all together
All of these searching techniques can be combined to retrieve the results
which are most suited to your needs. If you understand the functions
of the different searching techniques in the following statement, you've
got it!
(((post-traumatic stress)
near disorder) and (wom?n or female*)) in ti
Think
you've got it?
Test your knowledge with a quiz
or a game
of hangman.
Fade applet originally written
by Giuseppe Gennaro.
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