| Finding Information Search strategies
and techniques
General advice
To search successfully you will need to think about:
- what words might be used to describe your topic, including:
- synonyms as associated words
- words which should be excluded
- words describing related ideas
- whether you wish to limit the search:
- by language -- for example, only including English-language materials
- by date -- for example, restricting the search to materials produced after 1996
- by form -- for example, only searching for journal articles or theses
- by output -- for example, searching selectively rather than comprehensively
- what sources to use for searching:
- general sources such as:
- encyclopaedias
- newspapers
- subject-specific sources such as:
- monographs
- journals
- databases
There is no general model of searching which will be successful in all cases: if you
are unsure what to do, the professional staff in your library, information service or
resource centre will be able to help you develop suitable strategies and suggest sources
to try.
There are several starting-points for a search. Which you choose depends on your prior
knowledge of the topic for which you are searching.
As you continue to search,
keep rethinking your approach to searching. What you find may suggest other ways to
describe the topic or the need to include other sources. It may also help you to search
for related topics that might lead you to the one you really want.
Search syntax
Different search tools offer different options for refining searches, and may use different search
syntax or languages. Some search engines allow you to refine your search
by selecting from a number of natural language options such as "find
all words," "find any words" or "must not include."
Others require you to use either "search math" or Boolean logic
to refine your search. By learning the basics of search math and Boolean
operators you can make your online searching a much more productive
experience.
Remember
that while the principles are the same for most search engines, they may
use slightly different versions of the search syntax; always read the
help page of the search tool you are using! Bear in mind that
- Some
search facilities are case sensitive, while with many it doesn't matter
whether you use upper or lower case. Read the search engine's help page!
- Many search engines by default ignore common words such as "the" "and" "in"
etc. These are known as "stop words."
Search math
"Search
math" uses common mathematical symbols
to refine searches:
- Use + (plus sign) in front of each term which must appear in your search results. For
example, if you are looking for stirrups for horse riding, entering
+horse +stirrup
will make
sure that the results are all about stirrups for horses - not surgical
stirrups, the Stirrup family or recipes for a Stirrup Cup cocktail.
- Use - (minus sign) in front of every term which must not appear in your search result.
Using the same example as above, you could enter
+stirrup -cup
-surgical
- Use " " (quotation marks) around words you want to mark as
a phrase. For example,
"South Africa"
"stirrup cup"
"Thabo Mbeki"
- Use the wildcard
* (asterisk) for truncation. For example if you
want to search for education, educators, educate etc., enter
educ*
NB: Not all search engines permit wildcard
truncation. Check the help page of the search tool you are using!
Boolean logic
Some search
engines use the Boolean operators "AND,"
"OR" and "NOT"
for the refining of searches. Boolean
operators should generally be written in capital letters.
- Use AND to
require that more than one terms appears in all search results. For
example,
chocolate AND cake will find pages with both terms
- Use OR if you want all your search results to include
either term (or both). This can be useful if there are alternate
spellings (e.g. "organization" and "organisation" or
synonyms (priest, minister) for terms. To find all pages which contain
the word "priest" or the word "minister" (or both),
enter
priest OR minister
- Use NOT to exclude terms you don't want to appear in
your search results. For example, if you are looking for information
about cabinet ministers rather than ministers of the church you could
enter
minister NOT priest
NB: Some search engines use AND NOT instead of NOT.
Check the help page of the search tool you are using!
- Some
search engines also allow the use of the "proximity operator" NEAR as well as the three Boolean operators.
Where searching for
south AND africa
may lead you to a page with "south" at the top and "africa"
at the bottom, entering
south NEAR africa
will ensure that the terms appear close to one another.
Not all search tools allow this - check the help page.
Links to resources
Developing
search strategies (University of California at Berkeley)
http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/TeachingLib/Guides/
Internet/FindInfo.html
Glossary
of search terms (Search Engine Watch)
http://www.searchenginewatch.com/facts/glossary.html
Boolean
operators (Search Engine Watch)
http://www.searchenginewatch.com/facts/boolean.html
A Primer in Boolean Logic (University at Albany)
http://library.albany.edu/internet/boolean.html
Google/AltaVista Quick Reference Guide
Yenza! handout comparing the search math and Boolean operators used by the
search engines Google and AltaVista (MS Word document).
http://www.nrf.ac.za/yenza/pdf/quick.doc
Topic Analysis Worksheet
Yenza! handout with questions to help you break down your search topic (MS
Word document).
http://www.nrf.ac.za/yenza/pdf/analysis.doc
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