DialogWeb Help: Entering Search Terms

Searching is based on an exact match of a search term to an index entry in the databases used in the serach session. You can truncate terms to search variant forms of a term and, when entering more than one search term, you can use logical and proximity operators to show the relationship between terms or to specify adjacency.

Truncation
Truncation uses one or more question marks at the end of a search term to search on a word stem or incomplete term. Word stems should be at least three characters long. Common stems, such as cat and com, should be avoided since the truncation of a short term may retrieve many irrelevant terms, for example, cat? retrieves cat, catalog, catastrophe, etc.

• Open Truncation
  You can truncate a search term by appending a question mark to the end of a term. For example, enter transport? and all records containing the word stem transport are retrieved, including such terms as transportation, transported, transporting, and transportable.
• Restricted Truncation
  To restrict truncation, enter one question mark for each character you wish to allow. For example, enter transport??? and all records containing the word stem, transport, plus three characters are retrieved including transport and transporting. A question mark followed by a space and another question mark retrieves records containing the word stem and one additional character following the word stem. This strategy is frequently used to retrieve a specific search term in both its singular and plural forms.
• Internal Truncation
  A question mark can replace a character in a search term. For example, to retrieve records that contain the terms woman and women, enter wom?n. More than one question mark can be inserted in a term, however, the terms retrieved will have one character for each question mark used. For example, enter psych????ist and records containing the terms psychologist and psychiatrist are retrieved. You can also use internal truncation with open and restricted truncation. Internal truncation cannot be used to retrieve variations in spelling that result in words of different lengths, for example, color and colour. To retrieve variations in spelling, enter both terms separated by the OR operator, for example, enter color or colour.

Logical Operators
The logical operators OR, AND, and NOT establish a relationship between two or more search terms as follows:

• OR
  OR logic groups search terms into a single set and specifies that at least one of the terms must be present in each record retrieved. For example, to retrieve records that contain the term moon or the term lunar, enter moon or lunar.
• AND
  AND logic groups search terms into a single set and specifies that all terms must be present in each of the retrieved records. For example, to retrieve records that contain the term moon and the term lunar, enter moon and lunar.
• NOT
  NOT logic eliminates terms from a search. For example, to retrieve records about eclipses but not solar eclipses, enter eclipse? not solar. NOT can be used with a proximity operator, for example, economic(not w)recovery.
• Parentheses
  You can use parentheses ( ) and logical connectors AND, OR, and NOT to combine search words, for example, (kidney or renal) and transplant?.

Proximity Operators
Proximity operators specify the relative nearness or adjacency of search terms as follows:

• (N)
  The NEAR operator specifies that your serach terms must occur next to each other but in any order. A number in front of the N specifies a maximum number of intervening words, for example, (2N) lets up to two terms occur between the search terms specified.
• (nW)
  The (nW) operator specifies that terms be within a specified number (n) of words of each other and in the specified order, for example, solar(3w)energy.
• (N)
  The (N) operator specifies that terms be adjacent to each other but in any order, for example, solar(n)energy. The (N) operator can also be used to retrieve identical terms, for example, johnson(n)johnson.
• (nN)
  The (nN) operator specifies that terms appear within a specified number (n) of words of each other but in any order. For example, a(2n)b(5n)c retrieves records in which terms a, b, and c appear within 10 words of each other (3 terms and 7 intervening words equals a 10-word window).

Advanced Proximity Operators

• (L)
  The (L) operator specifies that terms be in the same descriptor unit (heading-subheading entries) as defined by the database. For example, use solar(l)energy to retrieve solar-energy.
• (S)
  The (S) operator specifies that terms be in the same subfield unit as defined by the database.The (S) operator is especially useful for searching terms that appear in the same paragraph of the text field, for example, library?(s)automat?.