Okay, so we've updated our results and
obviously we have a really large number
because we searched for job satisfaction
as a very broad topic. And not only that,
we did not search for job satisfaction
as a phrase. Phrase searching is probably
my number one go-to search technique.
It's the quickest way to narrow down a
particular search based on that term.
Phrase searching uses quotation marks to
find words in the exact order you type
them in with no other words in between.
In other words, this particular search
that we've done for job satisfaction is
searching for job anywhere and
satisfaction anywhere, so not necessarily
together. A lot of our results we do see
them together, however as those results
decrease in relevancy we might see job
on page one and satisfaction on page 20
of that article. Meaning they're not
relevant to our topic.
So what we want to do is put quotation
marks around our term so we will be
searching for it as an exact phrase, and
watch the results the number of results
here to see how dramatically they
decrease when we apply this phrase
searching. Phrase searching by the way
works in most all library databases and
also within Google and Google Scholar. So
even if you're searching for an a business or an event
or a webpage you wanted to find in Google, you can always use quotation marks.
So, now we decreased it pretty significantly
since we applied that phrase searching.
Still 77,000 results is way too large. If
job satisfaction was our topic, this
would be an unrealistic number of
results to sort through. So we want to
start using other techniques to narrow
that down.
So, the
next thing we want to think about doing
is using the Boolean operators. Boolean
operators combine keywords in searches.
So in many of the library's databases
you'll see the Boolean operators on a
drop-down list like you see here. And, or,
and not are the Boolean operators. so
depending on which one you've selected
it will either broaden or narrow your
search. So let's go ahead and put in some
additional keywords and combine them
with these Boolean operators. By the way
if you go into a database and you don't
see the Boolean operators, it's probably
because you are on a basic search screen.
So you can always look for an advanced
search option which we are now in, in
order to see the multiple boxes with
the Boolean operators. So let's say our
topic was indeed job satisfaction, but we
want to know how employee engagement
relates to job satisfaction. So we could
combine our terms with the 'and' which is
the default here, and we're going to
choose employee engagement. So let's go
ahead and update our search this should
reduce our results again significantly
since we are getting more narrow with
our topic. So now we're down to just
under 4,000 search results versus
77,000 which is what I believe we had
before. Another operator that could be
used is the 'not' operator. I don't
typically use the not operator but there
are some circumstances where you may
want to use the not operator. In this
case, let's say we are seeing results for
a specific industry that we are not
interested in. So in this case, I'm
interested in job satisfaction and
employee engagement, but I'm not
interested in it as it relates to the
health care industry. Maybe I'm only
looking at
other industries. So I can go ahead and
put 'not' healthcare in my search. So this
will eliminate any article that mentions
the word healthcare anywhere in the
article. So just keep in mind that when
using the not operator it is possible
that you will eliminate potential search
results that are very relevant to your
search. But let's go ahead and try this.
Okay, so now we have limited our search to
just 2,600 results when we eliminated
those healthcare articles. So that is an
example of how to use that not operator.
I'm going to take out this last line so
we can do an example of using the 'or'
operator. Let's say we're interested in
job satisfaction and either employee
engagement or we've noticed in the
literature we see the phrase work
engagement. So if we type in 'or' work
engagement, I'm first showing you what
not to do okay ,I actually do not
recommend using the or operator from the
drop down menu, and I'll show you why. So
we're going to press search and then
I'll explain why this is going to give
you irrelevant results. So we're up to
over 12,000 search results and basically
what this particular search is doing is,
we're looking for job satisfaction and
employee engagement together in the
same article, or we're just looking for
the term work engagement. So work
engagement is no longer associated with
job satisfaction. Those articles can talk
about work engagement in any sort of
context which is why our results went up
so much...
which is why you'll see results without
any mention of job satisfaction. So
sometimes students will use the or
operator and not know why they're
getting such irrelevant results. Other
times it can lead to millions of search
results, and you're not quite sure why. So
instead of using the or operator here,
I'm going to show you how you could
effectively use that and that is by
using a nested search. Nested searches, we
talk about more in Searching 102, but
because I'm showing you what not to do
here I want to show you how to fix that.
So a nested search will search for any
of the phrases or keywords within your
nested parentheses. So here I am looking
for job satisfaction and either employee
engagement or work engagement, but it
still must have job satisfaction. So
using this technique will make this go
down from the 12,000 results to
something that may be a little bit more
manageable, especially once we start
adding our additional limiters or terms.
So you see how dramatically that went
down as well.
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