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Library tutorial by J. Forte September 30, 2014

Database Searching. Search Statements. Library tutorial by J. Forte September 30, 2014. Each database, including an Internet search engine, has a blank line with the cursor blinking. It wants you to type something in that line. What we type in is called the Search Statement. SEARCH

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Library tutorial by J. Forte September 30, 2014

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  1. Database Searching Search Statements Library tutorial by J. Forte September 30, 2014

  2. Each database, including an Internet search engine, has a blank line with the cursor blinking. It wants you to type something in that line.

  3. What we type in is called the Search Statement. SEARCH STATEMENT

  4. Search Statements contain • The Keywords we learned about in the other tutorial and… • Boolean operators

  5. AND BOOLEAN operators are the words and the computer uses these in different ways. NOT OR NOTE: You do not have to capitalize Boolean operators or type them in a different color.

  6. Example of a search statement College students AND alcohol When you use an AND in the search statement, the computer will look for those articles, etc. that are about college students and alcohol togetherin the same article. If alcohol and college students are nottogetherin the same source, the computer will reject it.

  7. This graph shows how the computer pulls up only those items with Exercise AND Aged together in the same article.

  8. Here’s another example…

  9. NOT Let’s say we want some articles about exercise but not about exercise used as therapy. Here is where we use the NOTBoolean operator.

  10. Another example of NOT The search string cats not dogs will retrieve only results with cats but not those with dogs. Only cats is included. Dogs and the overlapping center are excluded. N O T cats dogs

  11. OR Remember back in the Keywords tutorial where we said you need to think of synonyms for your keywords just in case you don’t get the search results you wanted. This is where you use the OR to add those synonyms to your search statement. Alcohol, alcohol abuse, alcoholism, binge drinking drinking University students college students

  12. OR Alcohol, alcohol abuse, alcoholism, binge drinking drinking Search Statement College students AND (drinking OR alcohol abuse)

  13. OR College students AND drinking may not give complete results because many articles may be about that subject but express drinking in other terms.

  14. OR That’s why we use a synonym for drinking, such as alcohol abuse. College students AND (drinking OR alcohol abuse) Notice how the OR part of the statement is nested in parentheses. Remember, the computer performs the operations in parentheses first and then does the rest.

  15. College students AND (drinking OR alcohol abuse) The computer finds all of the articles with drinking or alcohol abuse, and then it checks to see if those articles are about college students.

  16. OR Of course the OR does not always have to be nested. It can be part of a simple search statement to get more results: cars OR automobiles

  17. Examples of search statements How does globalization affect employment in the United States? Globalization AND (employment OR jobs) AND United States What are the effects of globalization on income distribution in developing countries? Globalization AND income AND developing countries

  18. More examples of search statements Find some materials on the risks of using cell phones while driving your car Cell phones AND (risks OR safety) AND driving Cell phones AND (cars OR automobiles) Cell phones AND (cars NOT trucks)

  19. Which statement will get the best information from a database search? “Discuss capital punishment as a deterrent to crime.” Capital punishment or crime Deterrent and crime Capital punishment and crime Click the box of the appropriate answer

  20. Which statement will get the best information from a database search? “Discuss capital punishment as a deterrent to crime.” Capital punishment or crime Deterrent and crime Capital punishment and crime Yes, all of the articles retrieved will be on capital punishment AND crime together.

  21. Which statement will get the best information from a database search? “Discuss capital punishment as a deterrent to crime.” Capital punishment or crime Deterrent and crime Capital punishment and crime No, the correct answer is the third one. The first one will retrieve a lot of articles on both topics, but they will not necessarily be related to each other. The second one, or course, does not mention capital punishment at all.

  22. Which statement will get the best information from a database search? “Describe the effects of a thinning ozone layer on the environment.” Environment and ozone layer Effects and environment Effects and thinning Click the box of the appropriate answer

  23. Which statement will get the best information from a database search? “Describe the effects of a thinning ozone layer on the environment.” Environment and ozone layer Effects and environment Effects and thinning Yes, the first one will retrieve all of the articles with environment and ozone layer together. The other two do not mention ozone layer.

  24. Which statement will get the best information from a database search? “Describe the effects of a thinning ozone layer on the environment.” Environment and ozone layer Effects and environment Effects and thinning No, the first one will retrieve all of the articles with environment and ozone layer together. The other two do not mention ozone layer.

  25. Which would retrieve the largest number of records on cars? Cars NOT automobiles Cars OR automobiles Cars AND automobiles Click the box of the appropriate answer

  26. Which would retrieve the largest number of records on cars? Cars NOT automobiles Cars OR automobiles Cars AND automobiles Yes, you use OR to retrieve items that contain the keyword and its synonyms.

  27. Which would retrieve the largest number of records on cars? Cars NOT automobiles Cars OR automobiles Cars AND automobiles No. Use OR to retrieve items that contain the keyword with its synonyms so that you get the most records.

  28. Change around your keywords and search statements. Make sure you are using the right database. You will not find much on French literature in a scientific database. No search results? Did you ask a librarian for help??? Please do.

  29. Don’t stop now!!! You know how to use keywords to form a search statement and you learned about Boolean operators and how create search statements for the library’s databases. NEXT A guaranteed way to get more accurate results from an Internet search!!!

  30. Next tutorial… SEARCH STATEMENTS FOR THE INTERNET

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