Keyword searching idc
- 2. HOW TO FIND ONLINE INFORMATION Guessing the URL Using a search engine Using a web dictionary, subject gateway
- 3. SEARCH ENGINE A search engine is a searchable database of Internet files collected by a computer program (called a crawler, robot, worm, spider). Large amount of material Huge databas Emphasis quantity over quality Databases are updated at a variable rate
- 4. Subject Directory A subject directory is a service that offers a collection of links to Internet resources submitted by site creators or evaluators and organized into subject categories. Organize d hierarchi cally Subject and links meet each other very well Smaller databases Quality over quantity Maintained by editors (yahoo) Mostly searchable
- 5. Effective online search strategies KEYWORD SEARCHING Boolean searching Phrase searching Truncatio n Wildcard Field Searching Setting Limits
- 6. Boolean Searching violence AND television AND is used to narrow a search. This will retrieve records that have both keywords. college OR university sports NOT professional OR is used to expand a search. This will retrieve records that have either keyword. It’s useful for synonyms. NOT is used to narrow a search. This will not retrieve records that have the unwanted keyword.
- 7. Restriction/stemming (e.g. “search term”) Double quotation marks Some databases use single quotes restrict a search to that exact word or phrase SEARCH TERM RESULTS draw Drawn, withdrawn, drawing “draw” draw
- 8. Field codes (e.g. au, ti, su, etc) Databases will have their field codes available in a pull-down menu to one side of the main search field box. Field codes can often be used shorten search time yield more relevant results Interested in primary research papers that deal with our topic • search keywords in the title (ti:) field Searching for papers written by a particular author • combine the authors name in the au: field with another keyword in the title or subject (su:) field to eliminate papers by other researchers who have the same last name and initials. Ti: title Su: subject field Au: author field
- 9. STOPWORDS (e.g. a, an, are, as, at, be, but, by, for, from, had, have, he, her, his, if, into, is, it, no, on, such, that, the, their, then, there, these, they, this, to, was, which, will, with, you) Most databases will not recognize because they appear with such frequency in text and will not affect a search. The words and, or, not, however, are recognized by most databases as Boolean operators. Fire and climatic change in temperate ecosystems of the western Americas “and” = recognized as a Boolean operator Results: individual words in the title: fire, climatic, change, temperate, ecosystems, western, Americas. To avoid this, place the entire title in double quotation marks and specify a title search by using either a pull-down menu or a field code.
- 10. Truncation (e.g. *, #) Used to find various forms of a word Cat* category catatoniccatalog Bird* birds birdingbirdman
- 11. Wildcards (usually the question mark ?) Used in the middle of words to indicate a missing or non-existent letter This can help get to results even if the word entered in the database has been misspelled or spelled alternatively M?cDonald McDonald (non-existent letter) MacDonald (missing letter) dependant depend?nt dependent
- 12. Plurals (e.g. &, +) Special form of truncation Adding ampersand (&) or plus (+) symbol to the end of a word sky& skies sky Ys F V Is Database will automatically convert
- 13. Proximity (e.g. with, near) Not every database offers this kind of searching. Many databases classify these words as stopwords. Search entry Results bronchitis with pollution both bronchitis and pollution bronchitis near pollution both words in the same sentence
- 14. Parenthetical grouping Just like in mathematical equations, differential emphasis and ordering can be given to sets of search terms by using parentheses. Parenthetical searches are most effective with Boolean and field code searches. (au: dawkins) AND (su: protostomes) searches the author field for dawkins and the subject fields for protostomes.
- 15. Multilink and Citation Linker “Multilink-enabled” means that Google Scholar, Biological Abstracts, or whatever search engine or database you might be using has been connected to “link resolver” software It will search all the databases in a specified list for full-text versions of articles you may find in sources that do not offer full-text or for items in databases for which we have no subscription. Citation Linker Upper right hand corner of the Articles & Databases page. Once you have a citation for an article you want, simply fill in the fields in the Citation Linker and click GO. It will then do the same thing as Multilink by searching our journals and databases for a full-text version of your article.
- 16. THANK YOU
Editor's Notes
- #16: Another method for finding full-text versions of articles is to use the Citation Linker application powered by Multilink.