Library

e-Resources Use and Application in

University Learning and Business

Unit 2: Search strategies and Information Retrieval

Presenter: Ms M. Chinzou
Email: [email protected]
 Introduction

Information finding aids/access tools help you to

discover information
Information searching has to be systematic and
organised
The web is vast
Information explosion and information overload
Scientific advancements
Information searching has to be fast and on cue
 Learning Outcomes

By end of this unit, students should be able to:-

Identify keywords from a research topic/problem
Use various search techniques to maximise the
potential of each of the words and phrases
Review and evaluate search results
Appreciate the importance of a search strategy
 Structure of the Unit

Online information retrieval tools

Types of information searches
Developing a search strategy
◦ Including search techniques
The application of search techniques electronic
resources
 Online information retrieval
tools

Library website - http://library.uz.ac.zw

Campus access
Off campus access
Search engines
Databases
 Types of Searches

Simple search
Advanced search
 Simple Search

Simple Search doesn’t modify the search page, it just

adds a new view on top, showing just those
“traditional” search results provided by the search
engine. If you’d rather see the other results, too, you
can easily close the window.
 Advanced Search

Allows one to perform complex searches

Allows one to apply filters and parameters to a search
query
Developing a Search
Strategy
What is a search strategy?
•A systematic plan of conducting a search.
•An organised structure of key terms used to search a database.
•After you've selected your topic, come up with a research
question, and do some background reading,
•It is important to map out how you will go about searching
library databases, the library catalogue, or even search engines
like Google Scholar for research materials on your topic.
•Database searching is different from searching Google -
databases cannot interpret questions and phrases, hence it’s
necessary to build a search strategy to get the best results
quickly.
Steps in formulating a
Search Strategy
Step 1: Identify the main concepts or ideas in
your topic
Using the following topic as an example:

◦ Health implications on water pollution

The main concepts would be ;

Health………..Water……….Pollution
Steps in formulating a Search
Strategy
Step 2: Find alternate words for your main concepts
You can find alternative keywords or phrases for your concepts
through the following:
oUse a thesaurus to identify synonyms.
oSearch for your concepts on a search engine like Google Scholar,
scanning the results for alternative words and phrases.
oExamine relevant abstracts or articles for alternative words and
phrases
Examples of alternative keywords for the main concepts in Step 1 :
Health…diseases….illness…..bacterial infection
Water……dams………rivers……wells
Pollution…..contamination….. Infection….. adulteration
Steps in formulating a
Search Strategy
Step 3: Create your search statement

oOnce you have identified the concepts you want to

search and have carefully chosen your keywords,
device how you will combine and them into the search
box of your selected search tool.
oThe following search techniques can be used to
create an effective search statement when searching in
both research databases and web search engines;
create your search
statement
1. Phrase searching
oPhrase searching is a useful technique if you are searching
for a term that is more than one word.
oIf you are searching for a phrase and find you are getting
some irrelevant results, try putting your phrase in
quotation marks.
oThis tells the academic database that you only want to see
results where the words appear next to each other in a
sentence.
oThis can increase both the precision of your search and
the relevance of your results.
oExample: “sustainable development”
create your search
statement
2. Boolean Operators
oYou can use Boolean Operators to combine your
search terms together to either narrow or broaden your
search.
oThe main Boolean operators are OR, AND, and AND
NOT (or just NOT in some databases).
oThese will make your search both thorough and
precise and produce the most relevant search results.
oThe next slides will demonstrate how to use each of
the operators;
create your search
statement
Boolean Operator “OR”
oUse the operator OR to combine two or more alternative terms for the
same concept.
oThis will give you results which contain all terms.
oUsing OR will increase your number of results and make your search
more thorough and comprehensive.

oIllustration for Operator “OR”

create your search
statement
Boolean Operator “AND”
oYou can use the operator AND to combine terms for different ideas or
concepts.
oThis will find only those results which contain BOTH terms.
oAdding AND will reduce your number of results and make your search
more precise and specific.

oIllustration for operator “AND”

create your search
statement
Boolean Operator “AND NOT” (or just NOT)
oTo EXCLUDE a term that you don’t want in your results you can use
the operator AND NOT (some databases just use the word NOT).
oThis technique can be effective if you are getting a lot of results on an
aspect of your topic that you are not interested in.
oHowever, you may want to check your results to make sure you have
not excluded anything that is potentially useful.

oIllustration for operator “NOT”

create your
search statement
3. Proximity Searching
oProximity searching allows you to search based on how closely two or more
search terms appear in the search results, most used when you are looking
for concepts that might be expressed by multiple different phrases.
oProximity operators are composed of a letter (N or W) or word (NEAR) and
a number (to specify the number of words appearing between your search
terms). Remember, the lower the number, the narrower the search.
oFor example, curriculum N3 theories would search for curriculum within
3 words of theories, in any order.
oSo, curriculum W3 theories may pull up articles about curriculum
design theories or curriculum reform theories, but not theories of
curriculum design or theories of curriculum reform.
oHowever, it is important to keep in mind that different databases use
different proximity operators. Check the help menu of the database you're
searching to find out what symbols it uses.
create your search
statement
4. Stop words
oStop words are frequently occurring, insignificant words that
appear in a database record, article or web page. Common
stop words include: a, an, the, in, of, on, are, be, if, into,
which etc.
oMany databases ignore common words from your search
statement. If included, the database returns far too many
results.
oIn some databases, you can use techniques to include stop
words as part of the search.
oSome databases use quotes around stop words. Example:
Title keyword= out "of" Africa retrieves title: Out of Africa
create your search
statement
5. Truncation and Wildcards
oAlthough some databases will automatically search for variant spellings, mostly
they will just search for the exact letters you type in. Use wildcard and truncation
symbols to take control of your search and include variations to widen your search
and ensure you don't miss something relevant.
oA truncation symbol (*) retrieves any number of letters - useful to find different
word endings based on the root of a word. See examples below;
◦ Africa* will find africa, african, africans, africaans
◦ Agricultur* will find agriculture, agricultural, agriculturalist
oA wildcard symbol (?) replaces a single letter. It's useful for retrieving alternate
spellings (i.e. British vs American English) and simple plurals. See examples
below;
◦ Wom?n will find woman or women
◦ Behavio?r will find behaviour or behavior
Hint: Not all databases use the * and ? symbols - some may use different ones (!
instead of *, for example), or not have the feature at all, so check the online help
section of the database.
Steps in formulating a
Search Strategy
Step 4: Evaluate your search results
oAs results are retrieved, you can modified search
statements based on your information requirements.
oYou can expand retrieval by including broader terms and
related terms
oOr you can reduce retrieval substituting broader terms with
narrower terms
oYou can also modity your search using a different search
technique e.g. Use “AND” operator instead of “OR” to
narrow your search.
oMost databases also have Limiters which cam be used to
refine your search as will be shown in the next slides;
Refining your search using
Limiters
Refining your search using
Limiters
 Activity
Congratulations for going through this section Developing a
Search Strategy!
You are now expected to finish by doing the following Quiz:
a. Which search technique is this? 1/4
oIt will only find results where the words in your search appear next to each other in a
sentence, and will make your search more specific:
b. Which search technique is this? 2/4
oIt will only find results which contain both your search terms, reducing the number of
results and making your search more precise and specific:
c. Which search technique is this? 3/4
oIt will exclude any terms that you want to remove from your search if you find you are
getting too many irrelevant results:
d. Which search technique is this? 4/4
oIt will find results containing all search terms, increasing the number of results and
making
your search more thorough and comprehensive:
 Further Reading
Becker, B. W. (2018). Information literacy in the digital age: Myths
and principles of digital literacy. School of Information Student
Research Journal, 7(2), 2.
Welsh, T. and Wright, M., 2010. Information literacy in the digital age:
An evidence-based approach. Elsevier.
Koltay, T., 2011. The media and the literacies: Media literacy,
information literacy, digital literacy. Media, Culture & Society, 33(2),
pp.211-221.
Chisman, J.K., 1996. Teaching electronic information literacy: A how-
to-do-it-manual-edited by Donald Barclay. New York: Neal Schuman,
1995. 179p. ISBN 1-55570-186-8. LC 95-31401. The Journal of
Academic Librarianship, 5(22), p.401.
 Further Reading

Yates, S. and Lockley, E., 2020. Digital Engagement and Class: Economic, Social,
and Cultural Capital in a Digital Age.
Vechtomova, O., 2009. Introduction to Information Retrieval Christopher D.
Manning, Prabhakar Raghavan, and Hinrich Schütze (Stanford University, Yahoo!
Research, and University of Stuttgart) Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Vechtomova, O., 2009. Book Review: Introduction to Information Retrieval by
Christopher D. Manning, Prabhakar Raghavan, and Hinrich
Schütze. Computational Linguistics, 35(2).
Bawden, D. and Robinson, L., 2002. Promoting literacy in a digital age:
approaches to training for information literacy. Learned Publishing, 15(4), pp.297-
301.