How to Do a Keyword Search
Keyword searches are used to locate material that contains the same words or phrases within the content of a material's text as specified in your search query. In addition to author searches, title searches, subject searches, and catalog number searches, library systems are also set up to perform title keyword searches. You can also perform a keyword search of the documents saved on your computer. Perhaps the most notable type of keyword search is carried out by Internet search engines.
- Difficulty:
- Easy
Instructions
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1
Go to your preferred search engine website. Some possible options are Google, Yahoo or Bing.
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Think about the information you want to know. Select descriptive words or phrases and be specific. For instance, let's say you're looking for information about Spain. Spain is a very broad subject. Think about what exactly it is you want to know about Spain, such as cheap flights to Spain; historic sites in Spain; popular music in Spain; fashion trends in Spain; or Spanish architecture. Use words that you would expect to find in material about this information.
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3
Use quotation marks around phrases where you are more likely to find what you're looking for if the words appear together, such as "sound waves" or "candy bar." The quotation marks ensure that only online material that contains text with this exact phrase will be listed in your search results. Without the quotation marks, your search results may contain material where the word "candy" and the word "bar," for example, are in the material but do not appear together as a phrase.
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Add the term OR (with capital letters) between words or phrases where finding either term in the text content is acceptable. For instance, "earth OR world."
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Put the minus sign (--) in front of words or phrases that you don't want to appear in the text of the search results. For example, if you want to find material on Portuguese water dogs but you want to exclude material that talks about breeding them, you could write: "Portuguese water dogs--breeding" (leave no space around the minus symbol and the keyword to be excluded).
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Use the asterisk sign (*) in place of the letter "s" whenever "s" is used to make a word plural. The asterisk sign is the wildcard sign. By using it in place of "s" the search engine will return results with text material published online that contains either the plural or non-plural form of your keyword.
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Click on the appropriate link located above the search bar on search engine websites to specify whether you want to search all online material indexed by the search engine, just "images" or just "video" content.
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Type your keyword search query in the search box. Hit the "Enter" key.
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