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TALON MODULE 4: Performing Effective Searches in Electronic Databases
Phrase Searching and Keyword Searching

Phrase searches are searches that look for an exact match of the word or phrase starting from the beginning of the term. Although you may leave off the end of a word or phrase, you may not leave out words in the beginning or middle, except in a few special cases. In general, phrase search options look in a single field in the record. Usually author, title and subject search options are phrase searches. For example, if I want to find Ernest Hemingway's For Whom the Bell Tolls, I can do an author search for "Hemingway, Ernest" or a title search for For Whom the Bell Tolls.

Keyword searches look for words or phrases located anywhere, and you can search more than one word or phrase at a time or combine searches together. You can often specify that the word or words appear in a particular field or set of fields. Keyword searching is what makes electronic databases more flexible than their printed counterparts. If I don't recall Hemingway's first name and there are many authors with the same last name, or perhaps I don't recall the exact title but I know the words "bell" and "toll" appear in it somewhere, I can do a keyword search using the terms I know.

Phrase/Field Searching Keyword Searching
Looks in just one field Looks in more than one field (author, title, subject, abstract, etc.)
Uses a controlled vocabulary (i.e. subject headings) Uses any significant word that pertains to your topic
Retrieved records are generally relevant to your topic Retrieved records may be irrelevant to your topic
Can search only one word or phrase at a time Can combine multiple terms

Concept & Design by Laurie Preston
Content Authored by
Laurie Preston & Jack Bales
Reviewed/Updated
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