PhraseSearching

toc = Phrase searching?.. What is that?.. = Essentially, phrase searching is a form of text searching which involves entering a group of words in a search engine, and producing results that pertain to the phrase. Phrase searching can be used to search for quotes, obscure phrases, or a combination of very common words. Phrase searching is useful because if you use single words you may get many irrelevant results which might not have anything to do with what you're trying to find information on.

= Examples of Phrase searching = If when searching the internet for "Teenage abortions" one were to type just the word teenage abortions without quotation marks you would get a list of results that relate to teenage and abortions, but not necessarily "teenage abortions". So if you were to type teenage abortions you get results that are relevant, because google looks for results that contains the phrase "teenage abortion" together. If you did not use the quotation marks, the words teenage and abortion may not be adjacent to one another, which leads to less efficient searching and many irrelevant results. With the use of quotation marks you would get 7,830 search results related to "Teenage Abortions". Without the quotation marks you would get 297,000 results.

Another example of this technique is present in the Google search engine. By placing the quotation marks before and after the desired phrase, Google will search the words in the exact same order. However, using the quotation marks with limiting examples, such as "Alexander Bell", will omit results such that contain //Alexander Graham Bell// (Google 1)//.// This is because the Google search engine will be instructed to search for pages with the words "Alexander" and "Bell" adjacent to each other only.

In conclusion, improper technique when phrase searching can lead to results that are too broad, or results that are too narrow.

= How can phrase searching make research more efficient? = Phrase searching allows students to search for a specific set of words, in a specific order, narrowing down the results to what they want. (Google advanced search tips) If a student was looking for the quote "Yesterday is history. Tomorrow is a mystery. But today is a gift, and that is why it's called the present ", but they only knew the part "yesterday is history" the use of the quotation marks would change the results which would come up. Using Google,"Yesterday is history" would produce only webpages with those words in the same order, while yesterday is history would have irrelevant results, such as a historical timeline called yesterday in history. The ability to set an order in a set of words instead of using a AND or + command between each words make research much more efficient through removing irrelevant order of words. Also, when we want to produce results for the question “How did WWII end?” using the quotation marks produced 738 results that focused on the reason behind the end of WWII on Google, but without the quotation marks, it produced 11,300,000 results and had irrelevant ones such as when did WWII end.

The use of phrase searching makes research more efficient through being able to specify a question that the answer is wanted for, or being able to specify a order of words that the results must have for it to be shown as one of the results. This would make research more efficient through reducing time wasted when students go through a site realizing later that it is irrelevant to their topic of research. Using phrase searching correctly will allow for students to only view sources that are specific to their topic, allowing them to cut down on time spent on going through irrelevant results, making research faster and better.

= How do I use this technique? = Many websites, if not all, use the same searching techniques. The default search technique for many websites is the Boolean operator search using AND. More information on Boolean operators can be found here: <<[]>> Phrase searching as explained above uses quotes to search for phrases, making your searches more efficient and on topic. The following screenshots are a few examples on the websites that the school has subscribed to.

**EBSCO**
Step 1: Go to the main EBSCO page

Step 2: Go to research resources and type in your search WITH QUOTES. Clicking on the full text option is recommended.

Step 3: Compare results to see which ones are more accurate. With quotes:

Without quotes:

As seen above, phrase searching gives us more accurate results, whereas boolean searching gives us irrelevant results like biographies or schedules.

**JSTOR**
Step 1: Go to the Home page.

Step 2: Enter your search phrase with quotes and without and then compare. With Quotes:



Without quotes:



We see here that phrase searching gives us the more accurate and relevant results compared to default boolean searching which gives us results like land use in tibet, etc.

**Google**
Step 1: Go to the home page and enter your search phrase with quotes.

Step 3: Compare.

Again, phrase searching has given us the relevant results by searching for the words in the given order.

**United Streaming**
Step 1: Enter your search phrase with quotes.

Step 3: Compare.

**World Book**
Step 1: Enter your search phrase with quotes.

Step 3: Compare.

World book is also more accurate and shows you relevant results like all the other wbsites when you use phrase searching to narrow down your results.

= Works Cited =

DSU. "Phrase Searching." __Information Literacy - Dakota State University__. 16 Sept. 2010 .

Google. "More search help: Google search basics." __Google__. 16 Sept. 2010 .

"Phrase Searching." __University of Cape Town - Libraries__. 16 Sept. 2010 .

"Yesterday In History." __It's History!__ 16 Sept. 2010 