Information Resources for Hum 299
Writing for the World Wide Web

GETTING THE MOST OUT OF PERIODICAL DATABASES

"Controlled vocabulary" and Subject searching:
Most databases allow you to do both subject and keyword searches. The distinction between the two
searches corresponds to the distinction between what librarians often call "controlled vocabulary" versus
"natural language."

Controlled vocabulary, which is used in Subject searches, is a selection of standardized terms that
databases use to describe various topics. This is similar to what the Yellow Pages in a telephone directory do.
Open up your Yellow Pages and try to find the listing for "car dealers." I do not think you will come up with any
results unless you look under "auto dealers." Similarly, if you are doing a subject search for books on Native
Americans, the term you will have to use is "Indians of North America."

So, what's the use of "controlled vocabulary"? The main reason for having a controlled vocabulary is that there
may be many ways of saying the same thing. The power of controlled vocabulary is that it "controls"
synonyms and other problems such as plural endings or alternative spellings.

What's the bottom line here? The bottom line is that if you attempt a subject search and you get no results, the
case might be that you have not used the "right" kind of term for your topic. In such case you might want to
experiment with a different term or you may want to try a (Key)word search.

A final note here: I call subject searches "smart" searches because they are concept-based searches. In
other words, when you look at the results of a subject search you can be quite sure that all the items (book,
articles, etc.) you retrieved are on your topic. This is not necessarily the case in (Key)word searching.

"Natural language" and (Key)word Searching:
In (Key)word searches you can use natural language or everyday speech. In other words, you do not have to
be concerned what the "right" kind of term is when you "keysearch" a database.

A (Key)word search takes your search terms the way you typed them and looks for them everywhere in what
we call "item records," such as titles, name of author(s), subject heading(s), names of publisher, or any content
description or note. In other words, a word search does not care about the actual "meaning" of your terms - it
just looks for the forms of the words you typed. As a result, if you misspell a word, it will look for the
misspelled word, if you type a word in its plural, it will look only for the plural, etc.

So, what's the deal with keyword searching? As you can tell, the advantage of (Key)word searching is first of all
that it's more flexible because you don't have to worry about what the "right" term is for your topic. It can also
be great when you research a specific subject where you want to combine different words (we'll talk about
how you can do that next with Boolean commands).

On the other hand, the disadvantage of a keyword search is that it might pick items that may not be relevant
to your topic because it just looks for the words you typed. For example, you might do a word search for "AIDS"
and pick up items about "hearing aids," too (in contrast, a Subject search on AIDS will give you results only on
the disease). Also, in keyword searches you need to be careful because these searches do not look for
synonyms, alternate spellings, singular or plural, etc. unless you yourself specify so (that's why
sometimes I call word searches "dumb" searches!).

A piece of advice: when you do (Key)word searches make sure you concentrate on the key words that
describe your topic. Typing in unnecessary words such as "effect", "cause", "relationship", "pros and cons"
etc. limits your search a lot! Also, keep in mind that (Key)word searches do not accept prepositions (at, to, on,
in, with, etc).

Boolean commands, Truncation and (Key)word Searching:
Boolean operators or commands allow you to link words together when you search complex topics. Only in
Keyword searches may you use Boolean operators (not in Subject searches). In the following examples I am
using caps just to highlight the commands; you don't need to use capital letters when you type in your search.

AND: the AND command looks for items containing both keywords. The AND command narrows your search.

Example: women AND sports

OR: the OR command looks for items containing either word. It can be used to link synonyms. Synonyms are
words that have the same meaning. The OR command broadens your search.

Example: women OR females

NOT: the NOT command excludes terms from your search.

Example: women NOT basketball

IMPORTANT: You can use as many of these Boolean commands as necessary in a single search
statement. Also, make sure you use a parentheses ( ) around those items that you combine with OR
like in the example below.

Example: (women OR females) AND (sports OR athletics) NOT basketball

* : the asterisk ( *) usually stands for what is called "truncation." Truncation allows you to type in the root of a
word so that the database can search for all possible endings.

Example: (women OR female*) AND (sport* OR athletic*) NOT basketball

Important notes for searching:
a) Use truncation as much as possible to avoid limiting your keyword searches to singular, plural,
or specific word formats (for example, type in adolescen* to pick up adolescent, adolescents,
adolescence).

b) Also, when you truncate, make sure you place the * symbol at the right place! For instance,
typing in "adolescents*" is incorrect, since the database has no other endings to add to your word!

cfinney 3/30/00