Explanation of Basic Search Commands
- Boolean Searching
- lets you put search terms into logical groups through the use of connecting terms
(Boolean connectors):
AND,
OR, NOT.
For example, apples
or oranges broadens a search (either term may be in the
records retrieved). Whereas, apples and oranges narrows the
search (both terms must be in the records retrieved). Not
excludes terms: oranges not apples excludes records which
contain the word apples.
-
Nesting (parentheses)
- allows you to tell the computer to perform one action before another. The terms and operation inside the parentheses are searched and combined first. So, in searching for gaming and (teens or adolescents), teens or adolescents are combined into one set and then combined with gaming. Therefore, the search requires that gaming must occur in all records and either teens or adolescents.
-
Field Searching
- lets you direct the computer to search only in a particular part of a
record.
For example, search only the title, URL, images, or
link text of a web page. This allows much more precise searching.
- Proximity (Adjacency) Searching
- allows you to tell the computer to look for a search term within N
words of another search term. For example, to look for jazz within ten words
of Colorado.
- Phrase Searching
- allows you to tell the computer to look for a phrase - a string of words next to
each other in a particular order. Most systems use " " around phrases to
trigger a phrase search, e.g., "forest of the night" or "P.G.
Wodehouse".
- Truncation Searching
- allows you to tell the computer to search for a particular word stem - disregarding
different word endings such as plurals. This is usually done by inserting a wildcard
symbol, such as * after the word stem. For example: bank*
retrieves bank, banks, banking, banker, bankruptcy, etc. Car* will
retrieve cars, career, cartoon, etc. So pick your word stem carefully!
- Relevance Ranking
- the computer uses an algorithm to estimate how closely records retrieved match
your search request. This may be expressed in quantitative terms between 0 and 100%.
Highly ranked documents are usually placed at the top of your results list.
Documents are ranked as more relevant if your search terms are: 1)
in the title, metatags, or
header of the page; 2) close to the top of the page; 3) close together; 4) repeated
several times on the page; and/or 5) uncommon in the pages being searched.
Some search engines provide a box where you may insert extra terms so
that web
pages containing those terms will be placed at the top of your results list.