The Right Words

Library instruction for PHIL 09211 on choosing the right words to construct a search.


Transcript follows below:

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Now that we have an idea where to search, let’s talk about what to search, as in what words to put in the search boxes. Sometimes, this is pretty straightforward: like if you’re looking for a particular philosopher or text. Names and titles make for a very precise search term, and it’s unlikely with these that you’ll miss anything or get results that aren’t what you’re looking for. When it comes to concepts, though, things can get squishier.

For example, let’s say you’re searching for articles specifically about Plato’s Allegory of the Cave. That's simple. You can just put “plato” in a search box, and “allegory of the cave” in another. You might also want to put quotation marks around "allegory of the cave," because that’ll tell the database to search for that exact phrase instead of each of those words separately. But if you want to examine the concept of the physical world, whether in that text or others, there are a lot of possible ways to put that idea that might still get at the same basic concept you’re looking for. So it’s a good idea to construct your search to include a lot of different possibilities, so you don’t miss things that could be helpful. You might try searching for ‘“physical world” or “material world” or reality’: three different terms that might all be used to describe the same concept. You can put these all in the same box, but putting “or” between them tells the database that you’re looking not for articles that have ALL of these terms, but articles that have ANY ONE OR MORE of these terms. If you also want Plato to be a part of the discussion, you can put “plato” back on a separate line, because it’s a separate concept from that one that you’re trying lots of variations on. In general, this is a good way to approach your search: try to break it down into a combination of key concepts, and then put each of those concepts in one box, with multiple variations of each concept in the same box if necessary. For the “physical world,” it’s necessary; for Plato, it’s not.

So how do you find those concepts in the first place? This is where your background reading is really useful. Remember I told you to take note of particular names, words and phrases, and related ideas that come up when reading background information about your topic? This is why: those terms will give you a really useful set of potential elements you could include in your search, and an example of how they’re usually phrased. Then you can try out other permutations and combinations as you go along.