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Table
of Contents
Learning
about a few search techniques will help you get better results!
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Internet
search tools provide powerful searching options. But, not all
search engines use the same set of rules. The best rule
to remember is that each search tool has its own Help
screen(s) to describe what techniques can be used to improve your
searches.
Here are
some techniques that some search tools may support.
| +
-
plus & minus signs
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Plus
sign ( + ) requires the term in the search result. Minus sign
( - ) eliminates results that include the term. For example,
if you wanted to find information on dolphins and eliminate
the Miami Dolphins, the football team, your search statement
could look like this +dolphin -football |
"
"
quotation marks |
Quotation
marks create a phrase that must be retrieved exactly. If,
for example, you wanted resources that included the phrase
solar energy (i.e., the word solar next
to the word energy) your search statement would be
"solar energy" |
*
asterisk |
An asterisk
at the end of a word stem (which must be at least 3 letters
long) retrieves all the words that start with those letters.
If, for example, you wanted to retrieve the words child, child's,
childish, children, childhood, etc., your search term would
be child* |
Boolean
operators
specify how search terms are to be related, one to another. Boolean
operators are typed in capitol letters to distinguish them from
search terms. (Boolean operators, and Venn diagrams illustrating
how they work, were introduced in the chapter on Electronic
Fulltext Databases: Special search features.)
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AND |
Requires
that every result have each of the terms. For example, if
you wanted resources about otters in Monterey Bay, your search
statement could be "Monterey Bay" AND otters |
| OR |
Retrieves
one or both words. For example, if you wanted resources about
otters or seals, your search statement could be otters
OR seals. If you use an OR statement with another
search term, put the OR statement in parentheses. For example,
if you wanted information on otters or seals in the Monterey
Bay, your search statement could be (otters OR seals)
AND "Monterey Bay" |
| NOT |
Eliminates
the word from the search. For example, if you wanted information
on active solar energy systems, and did not want resources
that referred to passive systems, your search statement could
be "solar energy" NOT passive |
Study these examples that
use - (minus), * (asterisk), and " " (quotation marks)
| Topic |
Search
statement |
| preventing
the common cold |
prevent*
"common cold" |
| dolphins,
but not football |
dolphin*
-football |
| dentistry
for children, not adults |
dentist*
child* -adults |
| sports
injuries and some sport (e.g., in this case, skiing) |
"sports
injur*" skiing |
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