Keywords & Search Tactics
Rules, methods, and codes to searching - limiting or liberating?
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"Images are notoriously difficult to retrieve with accuracy, as is evident to anyone who has searched for images on the World Wide Web." 9
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why so difficult?
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Successful searching requires certain skills, methods, & knowledge that aren't necessarily intuitive
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In other words, "a fundamental awareness of how each [database] works and a knowledge of common search techniques and strategies applicable across database types." 6
Not all that Intuitive...
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"When asked ‘what frustrates you most about searching on the Internet’, several child participants in [a] study provided some revealing answers" that illustrate how searching is not intuitive, but is learned skill.
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“Writing words is hard for me because I'm not really good at the writing.” ...
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“It doesn’t do all the words you say.” ...
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“It's hard because you have to find the right words to put in the box."
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Children were shown to have "difficulty formulating search terms and frequently used natural language or phrases instead of keywords." The explicit exclusion of "natural language" from the category of good search methods indicates that searching is not entirely an instinctive process. 2
An Answer Key?
Another example of how searching requires more methodology than intuition is the existence of sources that provide nothing but extensive lists of keywords for various topics, allowing any would-be searcher to perform a preliminary search for keywords before turning to the internet. 6
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There are several different, defined methods of searching, including:
“Controlled vocabulary,” “single words,” “boolean searching” 6
These enable searchers to search effectively, but their presence also exacerbates the fact that using a search engine does not come naturally.
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Thus, there do seem to be answers out there, but they only lead to more questions and more constructed correlations when the user begins to search.
Are we empowered by these tools?
Or left in the dark by arbitrary rules?
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