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Many databases allow you to search for exact phrases. This is essentially the same as requesting that your words appear immediately adjacent to one another, in the exact order you type them. Phrase searching is especially useful when you are looking for information about a concept that is generally expressed as a phrase with more than one word. Examples of concepts that would be useful to search as phrases are "black market," "sickle cell anemia," or "queer theory."
If your search terms appear in the database record, but are in a different order, or are separated by other words, then those records will not be retrieved as part of your search results. For example, if you search for the phrase "cancer treatment," but in the database record the phrase "treatment for cancer" is used, that record will not appear in your search results. For this reason, you should be selective when you choose to search for phrases, and remember that relevant information may be excluded from your search results.
Sometimes just typing the phrase itself is sufficient; other times, particularly when you are searching for items on the Web, you may need to enclose your phrase in quotation marks (for example, "alternative medicine" or "welfare reform"). Always read the searching help screens for the resource you are using to be sure you are typing in the search query appropriately.
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Try It: Phrase Searches: connect to a web search engine to try phrase searching. |
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