Introduction
Catalog
Layout
Keyword
Author
Title
Journals
& Magazines
Subject
Advanced
Basic Searching - Keyword
KEYWORD SEARCHES
Keyword searches look for your search term(s) that are indexed
in all parts of the item's record. (In other words, it searches all areas
of an item's record to find matches.) This is a great place to start if
you are just beginning your research.
Let's say you need to write a paper on sports. Do a keyword search.
Type sports in the box, and then click the Submit Search
button. (See figure 6 below.)
Figure 6
Results
Notice that the catalog found over 2,000 items that had the term "sports"
in the record fields.
This means that "sports" appears somewhere in each item's record
such as the title, table of contents, publishing information, series name,
etc. (See Figure 7 below) Items listed are in reverse chronological order,
meaning the most recently items are first. You can scroll through all
of the items to see which ones interest you the most.
Figure 7
But, you can also modify your search and narrow down the results.
Now, you realize the topic "sports" is too broad so you decide to narrow the topic to sports and gender, namely the role women play in sports. Do another Keyword search and enter sports and gender. (*Note: More than one keyword can be searched at the same time, but this means the search will only look for items that include ALL of your keywords in any order.) (See Figure 8 below.)
Figure 8
Introduction | Catalog | Databases | Scholarly vs. Popular Articles | World Wide Web | Call Numbers | Glossary
About Tutorial | Site Map | Site Index | FAU Libraries Home Page
©2003 Florida Atlantic University