Search Tips | Building Your Search | Sample Searches | Boolean Operators | Truncation | Phrase Searching | Proximity Operators | Precedence | Author Searching | Journal Searching

I. Search Tips

1. If you are unsure what field to search in, use the Full Text (General Search) search box. This will search for the terms you enter across the title, author(s), abstract and notes fields in each record.

2. To select multiple terms from any picklist (e.g. Language, Type of Publication, Date Range), hold down the Ctrl key on your keyboard (the Apple key for Mac users) and click on the terms you want to select.

3. Searches are case-insensitive. Using either upper or lower case letters will yield the same result set.

4. With the exception of the hyphen, do not use punctuation marks (slashes, commas, periods, colons, etc.). Punctuation marks in most cases will retrieve erroneous results.

5. Do not use the articles a, an, or the. The search software does not search for these words or other common stop words.

II. Building Your Search

Search Steps	Example
Formulate a search question:	"I'm looking for recent information on food safety in the beef industry."
Identify the key terms from your question:	food safety, beef industry
Identify any synonyms or related terms to include, and terms or ideas you want to exclude from your search:	include: meat inspection
Identify the fields you want to put your terms into (Hint: You may want to begin with a broad search in the Full Text field. You can always refine the search later.):	Full Text (General Search): "food safety" and ((beef or meat) and (industry or inspection))
Examine your search results and refine or broaden your query as necessary. (Hint: locate a citation that matches your interest and see what terms and keywords are used to describe it.)	Use the Refining Your Query link to narrow your search. Or, use the 'Back' button on your Web browser to return to the main search page where you can modify your original query. Or, click on the Main Search Interface link at the top of the search results page to begin a new search.

III. Sample Searches

I want to find all journal articles that involve pest management in the state of California, but that do not include information about pesticides.

Search Steps:

1. Select all of the Date Ranges by simultaneously choosing the CTL and ALT keys on your keyboard and dragging your cursor across all of the Date Ranges.
2. Select Journal Articles in the Type of Publication field.
3. Type the following query: "pest management" and California - in the Full Text (General Search) field.

I am looking for an article in the journal Experimental Mycology that was published in 1983 with the title "Role of bulk lipid fluidity in the thermal adaptation of Dictyostelium discoideum thermotaxis Fungi" and written by Dr. Fontana.

Search Steps:

1. On Agricola's home page, select the Journals Index in the upper left-hand corner.
2. Type: experimental mycology in the 'Enter title of journal:' text box.
3. Select the Date Range: 1979-1984.
4. In the Year of Publication field, select 'Published in' from the picklist and type in 1983.
5. Type in Bulk Lipid in the Title field (or some other unique phrase or term from the title).
6. Type: Fontana in the Author Name/Last field.

IV. Boolean Operators (AND, OR, NOT)

Boolean operators allow you to combine terms in your search. These operators can be used within individual fields, or as a tool to combine terms across more than one field (using drop-down menus).

AND

The default operator is and -- if an operator is not specified by the user, and will automatically be used by the system. Records retrieved must contain all search terms surrounding the and operator.

• Example: typing forests in the Title field and smith in the Author Name field, and choosing and from the drop-down menus beside the Author Name field -- will search for records that list "Smith" as an author and have the word "forests" in the title.
• Example: typing sediment flow -- searches for records containing "sediment" and "flow" (i.e., both terms must be present.)

  Note: This does not necessarily mean that the two words are used together in a phrase. To find the exact phrase "sediment flow," use phrase searching with quotation marks.

OR

The or operator tells the system to search for records that contain either of the search terms entered into the field (or to combine the fields on either side of it if using the drop-down menu to the left of each field).

• Example: typing forests in the Title field and smith in the Author Name field and choosing or from the drop-down menu -- searches for records containing "Smith" as an author or have "forests" in the title.
• Example: typing sedimentation or erosion -- searches for records containing either "sedimentation" or "erosion".
• Note: Records can but do not have to contain both terms.

NOT

The not operator tells the system to eliminate any records that contain a given search term from the results list.

• Example: sediment not flow searches for records that contain "sediment" but not "flow."

It is recommended that the not operator be used carefully. In the given search string, even potentially relevant records containing the term "sediment" might not be retrieved if the term "flow" were excluded from the search.

• Example: a record with the sentence "The sediment deposition resulted from the volcanic flow" would not be retrieved.

Note: not sediment will not generate a search result. The search software requires that terms both precede and follow the not operator. (e.g., erosion not sediment). 

V. Truncation (*)

This search method is also called a wild card or root word search. If you type an asterisk after the root of the word you want to search, the search engine will find all records containing words beginning with that root. Use this tool if you are unsure of an exact spelling or when you want to include plural forms in your search.

• Example: nutri* -- searches for all words beginning with "nutri-", such as "nutrition", "nutrients", "nutritious", and "nutritional".

Please note that left and internal truncation cannot be used -- the system ignores all letters to the right of the truncation symbol (*).

VI. Phrase Searching

The simplest way to search for an exact phrase is to define your search by enclosing the phrase in double quotation marks "".

• Example: "plant science" searches for the exact phrase "plant science".

Note: Phrase searching is the same as using the proximity operator pre/#. This means that phrases containing words from the stop list (which are ignored by the search system) will look like the following:

• Example: typing "department of agriculture" (with the quotation marks) is the same as typing department pre/2 agriculture. This search will retrieve records containing "department of agriculture".

VII. Proximity Operators (w/#, pre/#)

If you want to search for words used together but not necessarily limit the search to an exact phrase, you should use a proximity search. Proximity operators define how close to one another you want the terms to be used in the records returned. The operator w/# defines proximity of words in any order. The operator pre/# defines a particular word order. The number (#) you fill in determines the distance between the search terms.

For example, w/1 and pre/1 require that the words be adjacent. Using w/3 and pre/3 allow up to two words to come between the search terms. See the examples below:

• american w/1 association searches for the term "american" adjacent to the term ""association." Items retrieved would include phrases such as "American Association for Environmental Education" and "National Governor's Association, American School Food Service Association."
• american w/4 association searches for "american" used within 4 or fewer words of "association." Items retrieved would include phrases such as "American surveys performed in association with..." and "American School Food Service Association."
• food pre/1 science searches for "food" directly in front of "science." Items retrieved would include the exact phrase "food science."
• food pre/5 science searches for "food" 5 or fewer words before "science." Items retrieved would include phrases such as "developing a new food wholesomeness science to ensure food safety" and "trends in food science and technology." Not included would be phrases such as "science of food processing."
• Note: stop words are included when determining proximity.

When using more than one proximity operator, you must use parentheses.

• (american w/1 agricultural) w/1 movement searches for "american" within one word of "agricultural" within one word of "movement." Items retrieved would include the phrase "American Agricultural Movement."
• american w/1 (agricultural w/1 movement) searches for the same records as the search phrase in the example above. Items retrieved would include the phrase "American Agricultural Movement."
• american w/1 agricultural w/1 movement retrieves no records.

VIII. Precedence

You can tell the search engine to execute search commands in a particular order by using parentheses. This works like the rules for math problems. For example, in the equation (4+3) x 2, you first add 4 and 3 to get 7, and then multiply 7 by 2.

• Example: If you want to find records that contain the word "bean" or "legume," and then within these records find those that also contain the word "nutrient," you would use the search phrase (bean or legume) and nutrient. You could further refine this search to eliminate all records that contain "growth" by using the phrase ((bean or legume) and nutrient) not growth.

You can use nested parentheses as long as you use them in matched pairs.

• Example: the text string production and ((swing or pig) not livestock) searches first for records containing either "swine" or "pig." Then all records in that set containing the word "livestock" are eliminated from the results. Lastly, the results are further limited to records that also contain the word "production."
• Example: a search using the text string (food and science) or (calorie not adolescent) will return records that contain both "food" and "science" and those that contain "calorie" but not "adolescent." 

IX. Author Searching

The methods by which to search on author names are as follows:

• Using only a last name:
  • Example: richards -- searches for all records by "richards" with any first name or initial.
  • Example: o-reilly -- searches for all records by "O'Reilly" with any first name or initial.
• Note: to search for any name that contains an apostrophe, such as O'Hearn or O'Bannon, replace the apostrophe with a dash (-) in the search box. I.e., type in: o-hearn OR o-bannon
• When a first name or initial is available, also use the Initial search box:
  • Example: typing richards in the last name box, and t in the initials box -- searches for all records by "Richards" with first names/initial beginning with "t." Note: First names or initials are automatically truncated.
• Last names can be searched in truncated form:
  • Example: richards* -- searches for authors with the last name of "richards", "richardson", etc.
• Multiple authors names can be searched in the following ways:
  • Example: wheeler and reed -- searches for all records by both "wheeler" and "reed."
  • Example: wheeler or reed -- searches for all records by either "wheeler" or "reed," or by both authors.
• Note: If you fill in the Initials field, the search engine will not allow you to truncate your entry in the Last name field.
  • Example: if you enter s in the Initials field and smith* in the Last name field, the search engine will treat this as s* smith.

The Author Index can help if you are unsure of how to spell an author's name or would like to search for a specific author. This index can help eliminate searching errors by confirming spellings and finding variations of author names. For example, William S. Kowalik is listed as W. S. Kowalik and W. Kowalik.

Please see the help section on Author and Keyword Indexes for help on how to use the index.

X. Journal Searching

To search for abstracts in a particular journal or journals, use the Journal Name/Code field of the Main Search interface. The more journal title words you enter, the more precise the search results will be.

You can also limit a search to a specified journal or journals using the Journals Index, which is available from the AGRICOLA home page. This interface offers an alphabetical list of core journals as well as an option to search for specific journal titles.

Please see the help section on the Journal Index for more information.

Page Created: 12/98 ; Last Updated: 6/00 ; URL: http://agricola.cos.com/docs/rules.shtml

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