Main Menu Help
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Overview
getCITED's search interface provides for a great deal of power and flexibility.
If you want to use it like a web search engine, simply enter in your search terms.
Depending
upon which of the four search buttons you've selected, it will return all the publications,
identities, departments/faculties and institutions/organizations having all of
those terms in their searchable fields. If you want to be more selective, you can use
Boolean Operators (i.e., AND, OR and NOT) to refine your query.
And if you need to get even more specific, you can use parentheses
to construct complex queries, and quotation marks to search for
exact phrases.
However, it's not until you start using Search Delimiters that
the true power of getCITED's search interface becomes apparent. These allow you
to control which fields are searched for each of the terms you have entered. For example,
you could enter a search like CO(MAUWS) TI(GAMES) SO(SCIENCE) to find an article
in Organization Science (the SOurce) by Michael Mauws (the COntributor)
entitled "Understanding Language Games" (the TItle).
Using Boolean Operators
Boolean operators allow you to determine whether search terms must be present
(i.e., AND), may be present (i.e., OR) or must not be present (i.e., NOT).
The default within getCITED is AND, which means that an AND is automatically
inserted after each term in your search, except in cases where the terms are located
within quotation marks. Thus, entering ORGANIZATION SCIENCE and ORGANIZATION
AND SCIENCE within publication searches will both return all publications having both
of these terms somewhere within them. Entering "ORGANIZATION SCIENCE", on the other hand,
will only return records having these terms side by side in the order indicated.
You can combine Boolean operators in a wide variety of ways within your searches. For
example, entering MANAGEMENT OR ADMINISTRATION NOT PUBLIC within a department/faculty
search will return departments and faculties within MANAGEMENT or ADMINISTRATION
within their searchable fields, but will not return departments having PUBLIC in those
fields, such as departments of PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION.
Using Parentheses
Parentheses allow you to construct complex searches, particularly when combined with
the Boolean operators described above. In effect, they allow you to "nest" your search.
For example, you could build on the department/faculty search described above by entering
(MANAGEMENT OR ADMINISTRATION) NOT (PUBLIC OR HEALTH) to produce a listing of departments
and faculties whose searchable fields contain either MANAGEMENT or ADMINISTRATION, but
do not contain either PUBLIC or HEALTH.
Finding Exact Phrases
As noted above, getCITED automatically inserts an AND between each pair of search
terms. While this is usually helpful, it sometimes results in far more results being
returned than are desirable. This can be particularly problematic when searching for
contributors by last name and initial. For example, because searching for J D SALINGER
is the same as searching for J AND D AND SALINGER, getCITED will return all
records having these three terms (or letters, in this case) anywhere within their search
fields. Thus, the solution in cases such as this is to enclose the phrase within quotation
marks. That said, please note that the names of publications' contributors, as well as the
names of identities, are stored in LASTNAME, INITIAL1 INITIAL2 format, which means you'd
have to enter the foregoing search as "SALINGER J D".
Using Search Delimiters
Search delimiters are without a doubt the most powerful aspect of getCITED's search
interface. What they allow you to do is control which fields get searched for the terms
you have entered. This, combined with the power of Boolean operators, allows you
to find exactly what you are after (providing it exists within the database). For example,
entering PT(CONFERENCE NOT PAPER NOT PRESENTATION) LO(VENICE) YR(2003) within a publication
search will return a list of conferences taking place in Venice in 2003, but will not
return any papers or presentations from scuh conferences.
In brief, search delimiters provide endless possibilities for your searches. The complete list
of delimiters is provided on getCITED's main search page, and you can learn more about
them by clicking on the links that appear there.
