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Search Help - School Reform and Improvement Database |
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This page explains the differences between the search options that allow you
to search for ALL THE WORDS, ANY OF THE WORDS, or the words as a PHRASE.
Note: This search option only applies when you search for more
than one word. If you are searching for a single word, this search
option makes no difference.
When searching for more than one word, you have three options that
may give you very different results. The option that will produce the
most effective results depends on the number and type of publications
(or authors, reform model names, etc.) for which you are searching.
In this example, we will search for the words: success for all.
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Search for
ANY OF THE WORDS
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This search will look for records that contain the word "success"
OR the word "for" OR the word "all".
This produces the most matches (4,291) in the database. A search for ANY OF THE WORDS
often produces too many matches when you are searching for a single specific publication or author.
When to use it: However,
if you were trying to find records matching two distinct words,
such as two author last names (Motoko Slavin) the ANY search would be your best option to
find all the records you are searching for in a single search.
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Search for
ALL OF THE WORDS
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This search will look for records that contain the word "success"
AND the word "for" AND the word "all". This option locates many matches
(743) that have ALL OF THE WORDS. For our sample search, this helped
narrow our search results, because we ensure that the results have all
of the words we were looking for.
When to use it: Searching for ALL THE WORDS
can be effective when searching for a specific author, publication or topic that may be
referred to in multiple ways. For instance, searching for ALL
THE WORDS Robert Slavin would be more effective than searching
for ANY OF THE WORDS, because you only want to find Richard Slavin,
not Richard Walker or John Slavin.
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Search for
THE EXACT PHRASE
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This option would produce the fewest matches (157), and all of the matches are likely to be
very relevant to the search.
When to use it: Using the PHRASE searching option can be a
very effective way to narrow your search to target a specific
publication or a specific topic that is always referred to the same
way, such as "Success for All."
When not to use it:
If you get no matches after a PHRASE search,
try your search again using less restrictive search options. For example,
searching for Richard Slavin as a PHRASE may not produce the results you are
looking for, because the author may be listed as "Slavin, Richard" or "Richard E. Slavin."
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