Searching Techniques Review

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Searching TechniquesReview

• Mary Fairbairn
• 2002

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Broaden to be as inclusive as possible,Then
Narrow to be as relevant as possible.
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Ways to broaden a search

• OR operator
• truncation

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OR Operator
death penalty OR capital punishment

• Retrieves all the records that have either of two
  search terms in them.
• Broadens your search.
• Use with synonyms.

death penalty
capital punishment
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Truncation

• Use the asterisk () to stand for any number of
  possible characters at the end of a word root
  (including zero).

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Truncation

• But use it with caution.
• It may retrieve false hits.

retrieves
but also
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Ways to narrow a search

• AND operator
• NOT operator
• Field Searching

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AND Operator
execution AND public

• Retrieves only those records that have BOTH the
  first term and the second in them.
• Narrows your search.

execution
public
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NOT Operator
public execution NOT mcveigh

• Excludes records that contain the term following
  NOT.
• Can eliminate false hits.
• Use with caution.

mcveigh
public execution
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Field Searching

• Instead of looking for your terms ANYWHERE within
  the record, look for them in specific fields.
• Title and Subject fields are often the most
  effective for narrowing a search to the most
  relevant articles.

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Dont forget about Nesting

• ANY time you combine the AND operator and the
  OR operator in a search, you MUST use
  parentheses to indicate the relationships you
  want among the terms.
• e.g.
• execution and (witness or public)