Search Selected Access Tools

Rules for writing search statements

The key to writing effective search statements is to follow several simple rules

Always start with a simple search statement using one or, at the most, two concept terms.

• Begin with the most descriptive or technically correct term from your primary concept category
• Add a term from the most important secondary concept category.
  example: primary term AND secondary term
• Increase the complexity of your search statement only if the simple search statements retrieve a large number of results.

When writing complex search statements which contain both the AND and OR operators, always put parentheses around terms linked with the OR operator. The parentheses tell the search software to retrieve records containing the terms within the parentheses before combining those terms with the terms linked by the AND operator.

Always place the NOT operator and the term to be excluded at the end of your search statement. This structure tells the search software to retrieve all the items containing the terms occurring before the NOT operator first. From this set of items the search software then rejects those that contain the term which follows NOT.

Phrases should be marked. Marking phrases tells the search software to look for those words only when they are adjacent to each other and in the specified order. This is a special kind of proximity operator. Quotation marks are commonly used to indicate that the enclosed terms are a phrase - but not always. Read the Help screens of the search software you are using to find out how to indicate phrases.

Introduction
Identify Key Concepts
Search Access Tools
Print Access Tools
Online Access Tools
Analyze Results
Revise Search
Other Strategies
End of Module