:Searching Methods:
Proximity
Search: A proximity search
implies the searching for documents where two or more separately matching term
occurrence among the specific number of intermediate words or characters. it
goes beyond the simple matching of words by adding the constraint of proximity
and is generally regarded as a form of advanced search. Proximity search can be
designed for only some keywords within a specific distance. It uses various
search syntax and controls to facilities more articulate search queries.
Sometimes query operators like NEAR, NOT NEAR, FOLLOWED BY, NOT FOLLOEWD BY,
etc are used to indicate a proximity search. Application: we find both implicit
and explicit proximity search. The commercial search engines automatically rank
those search results where the user’s keywords have a good “proximity Score”.
For three or more words, the users specify which subsets of these keywords
expect proximity in search subsets. For Ex.,
Yahoo and Altavista, both support and undocumented NEAR operators. The syntax
is Keyword1 NEAR Keyword2 Google search supports AROUND (#) Bling supports
NEAR. The syntax is keyword1 near n keyword2, n= the number of maximum
separating words.
BOOLEAN
Operators: Boolean Operators are
simple words used as conjunctions to combine or exclude keywords in a search,
resulting in more productive result. The basic Boolean operators are: AND, OR
and NOT. The Boolean operators can be used in almost every search engine,
databases, or online catalogue. AND Operator (Narrowing the search): Using
Boolean Operator AND, one can tells the search engine to give result that
contain all of the words that entered. OR Operator (Expanding the search):
Using Boolean Operator Or, one can tells the search engine to give result that
contain any of the words that entered. NOT Operator (Narrowing the word): Using
Boolean Operator NO , one can tells the search engine to give result that
contain of the words except the word that following NOT.
Truncation
Methods: Truncation allows searching
various forms of a word by finding various alternate endings. Truncation is the
act or process of shortening or reducing something. In the context of
literature searching, it refers to the shortening of a search term so as to
bring up words that share a root word but have different endings. Truncation is
a technique frequently used in keyword searching, in which it helps reduce the
number of variations you have to search on separately. Truncation, also called
stemming, is a technique that broadens your search to include various word
endings and spellings. To use truncation, enter the root of a word and put the
truncation symbol at the end. The database will return results that include any
ending of that root word. In databases, the truncation symbol is the asterisk
(*) and (#), though it may be any character designated by the database. For
Example,” Child*” may result child childhood childlike children children’s, Childs , using the search term " person#
", it may result in "people", as well as "person",
"personalize", "personable", "persona", and
"personal".
