Doing Keyword Searches

Lynn W Zimmerman, PhD

What is keyword searching?

The process of searching electronically stored information to locate, and identify potentially useful articles and websiteso a specific wordo combination of words 

The Advantage of Keyword Searching

What are the disadvantages of subject, title, or author searches?o Title and author – have to know what

you are looking foro Subject - what terms have been entered

into the subject area of the record A Keyword search

o looks for words anywhere in the record

Before You Start Write a list of key words and phrases about

topic Example

o You want information on how to write a resume.o  What happens if you type in the word: resume?o What can you do? o Narrow by typing ‘resume template’ or ‘resume and

employment’ 

Interested in applying for a job in the US? o Resume template American o Resume template US

Basic Search Strategies

Type in the exact word or phrase that you want to look foro For the exact phrase, use “” to identify it as a set

phrase• lessons• “lesson plans”• “grammar lesson plans”

Type in a string of words related to the topic. Without “”, the search engine with look for

the words in any order and locationo Grammar lesson plans elementary EFL

Boolean Searching Finds a group of words or phrases linked by

and, or, and not, w/# (within a range) and not w/#.

Examples:grammar lesson plansgrammar lessons and elementary EFLgrammar lessons or elementary EFLgrammar lessons and not secondary

EFLgrammar w/5 EFLgrammar not w/27 secondary

What Can Happen? Fuzzy search - Finds words even if misspelled 

o A search for ‘grammar” would also find ‘grammer’ or ‘gramar’

Phonic search - Finds words that sound alikeo ‘pear’ in a search for ‘pair’

Synonym expansion - Finds word synonymso ‘grammar games’ may also give ‘grammar

quizzes’, ‘grammar puzzles’ Stemming - Finds grammatical variations on

endingso linguist, linguistic, linguistics

Your turn What is the topic you are thinking of

for your thesis?o Think of 3 keywords, then think of 3

keyword phraseso Arrange your keyword phrases different

ways using the Boolean connectors