SELECTING THE BEST SEARCH TERMS

EXAMPLES OF WHY TEXT WORD / KEY WORD SEARCHING CAN BE SLOPPY: One author publishes an article using the word "AIDS" in the title and abstract, while another uses "Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome" and yet another uses "Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome." If a text word/key word search was conducted using only one of these terms, then only one of the three articles would be retrieved, even though all are equally relevant. A text word/key word search would also miss "HIV" and related terms.

Another example that makes the same point is locating articles on "prisoners." You would miss many articles if you did not also perform text word/key word searches using: "prison" "prisons" "incarcerated" "incarceration" "imprisoned" "jail" "juvenile detention facilities" etc.

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