Class Home Page

Class Schedule

Assignments

Final Exam

Grading & Textbooks

Search Terms You Should Know

Evaluation of Class

De Anza Library

Distance Learning Center

Online Searching & Research Terms Because this is an advanced searching class, it is assumed that students are familiar with research "jargon". However, if you need a review, here are some words to remember. Archives Public records or historical documents. Also the place where such records and documents are stored. Magazine and newspaper databases may ask if you wish to search their "archives". A normal search may cover two years, and then if you want to read older articles, you need to search the archives. Boolean Operators: AND, OR, and NOT, used to define a logical relationship between your search terms. Example: income tax NOT federal Boolean Searching Using the Boolean operators as connectors between your search terms. violence AND television AND limits your search because both violence and television must be present. television OR media This is making your search pool larger. You would accept the word television or media. violence NOT television Not limits your search. Here you want violent information but not connected to television. violence AND television NOT children This is the most limiting. You want information about television violence but not involving children. Citation Information which fully identifies a publication. A complete citation usually includes author, title, name of journal (if the citation is to an article), or publisher (if to a book), and date. Often pages, volumes and other information will be included in a citation. If you would like to see exactly how to write a citation, Duke University has prepared a very helpful site: http://www.lib.duke.edu/libguide/works_cited" Domain or Internet Domain An Internet domain refers to a networked computer accessible through a host, or domain, name. A domain identity includes a distinguishing suffix such as: .com (commercial) .edu (educational, primarily in the U.S.) .net (network operations) .gov (U.S. government) .mil (U.S. military) .org (nonprofit organizations) Most countries also have a domain. For example, .uk (United Kingdom), .nz (New Zealand). Why are domains important? They can give you a clue regarding the type of information contained in the website. A website with a .mil domain will most likely have a different point of view than one from an .edu educational site. A newspaper or magazine or website written in a different country may have a different perspective than one created by the US media. Database An organized collection of information stored on a computer. Most common at De Anza College Library are the Ebscohost and Infotrac databases that index magazine articles and the Proquest database used for newspaper articles. Field searching (restricting): Limiting your search terms to a certain portion of a document. Example: indicating that you want your search terms to be in a website's title. Full-text When the whole (newspaper or magazine) article is available on computer, or included right in the index. You can just print out the article, or send it to your email box, instead of having to go find the magazine in the library and photocopy the article. Full text can also refer to books. By limiting a search to “full text” the index will only retrieve those articles that are available in their entirety. Hits Items retrieved by your search. HTML or HTML Code Hypertext Markup Language. This is the coded language used for creating hypertext documents on the World Wide Web and controlling how Web pages appear. Web pages are written in HTML language. Index A reference tool that lists (by author, title, or subject) items in a database or book. Icon A small graphic symbol that represents a program, file, or folder on a computer. Clicking on an icon with a mouse generally causes the program to run, the folder to open, or the file to be displayed (if possible). Journal A publication that contains scholarly articles written by professors, researchers or experts in a subject area. Different from popular magazines where articles are usually shorter and written in non-technical language. Links These are the connections between Web pages. The part of a web page that allows you to travel to another web page, email someone, or download files. Also known as hyperlink. Hyperlink A graphic or piece of text in a Web page that, when clicked with a mouse, causes another file on the Web to be accessed. Keywords Words that may be used by viewers searching for information. Or, if you are When developing a web site, say for a business, it's important to include keywords that are relevant to your business. These are the words that a user will put into a search engine in order to find your site. PDF or PDF File Adobe's Portable Document Format. It is often used as a format which allows much more complete, controlled layout of a page and its graphics and text than conventional HTML does. PDF files are readable with Adobe Acrobat Reader, an application which can be downloaded from the Adobe Web site at no charge. Periodicals Materials published at regular intervals -- monthly, weekly, daily -- such as magazines, journals, and newspapers. Periodical Indexes If you would like to read magazine or newspaper articles on a particular topic, instead of looking though a bunch of print copies, use an index. The most common periodical indexes are computerized. When a searcher enters a topic or key subject words, a list a articles will appear. In addition to "indexing" many online periodical indexes provide the entire article for printing or e-mailing. Phrase search: Using two or more words commonly found together and telling the search tool to make certain they are together. For example: "golden gate bridge" "fourth of july". Primary source Original information such as diaries, speeches, autobiographies. No "middle person" has edited the original work. Ranking of search results. Relevance Ranking Popularity Ranking Does the search engine display the search results in order of their apparent usefulness? Of course all search tools claim that they do -- but it is definitely worthwhile to scroll down the list and check out the results on page 2 or 3. Relevance ranking varies with different search engines but factors such as how often your terms occur in documents, whether they occur together as a phrase, and whether they are in title or how near the top of the text are what determines the ranking or order of the results. Popularity is another ranking system. Some search engines rank the order in which search results appear primarily by how many other sites link to each page -- a kind of popularity vote based on the assumption that other pages would create a link to the "best" pages. Result list or hit list All of the items retrieved by your search. Example: Your hit list is too large, we need to add another search term to make it more specific. Refining: Make your search results more relevant. Example: All of your results are national, we may try adding the term california to keep the results more tuned to the state of california (if this is what we want). Reference Collection Libraries like to keep all the reference books (dictionaries, encyclopedias, etc.) togther. Reference books do not check out but are used only in the library. Hopefully you will see a "reference librarian" working near the Reference Collection who can assist with library and research questions. Truncation & wild card: A wild card character (usually *) is used to stand for one or more letters. Used most often with truncation when searching a portion of a word to pick up alternate forms. Truncation is a good short cut to remember. wom* = woman, women, women's etc. swim* = swimmer, swimteam, swimming Relevance Ranking Does the search engine display the search results in order of their apparent usefulness? Of course all search tools claim that they do -- but it is definitely worthwhile to scroll down the list and check out the results on page 2 or 3. Search Engines A tool that enables users to locate information on the World Wide Web. Shareware Software available for downloading on the Internet that you can try before you buy. Scroll or scroll down the page Moving up or down within a document in your screen. Use scroll bar at right. Click on arrow down or arrow up. Drag the scroll button down or up. Or click on the page up or page down icons at the bottom of the bar. If you need to scroll left or right, use the scroll bar at the bottom. Search words or search terms: The words or phrases you use to describe the topic you are searching. Style Manual A guide which provides formats for typing footnotes and bibliographies. MLA (Modern Language Association) and APA (American Psychological Association) are two popular styles for preparing bibliographies. A very useful website has been prepared by Duke University: http://www.lib.duke.edu/libguide/works_cited Subject Heading A word or phrase used to find materials on a specific topic in a catalog or periodical index. URL Uniform Resource Locator. A unique address for every item on the Internet. Example: http://www.deanza.edu