Byron Quintanilla
MAT 101
Professor Glass
10-14-06
Assignment # 1
1) Suppose we needed to research the death penalty.
a) By putting the words death and penalty there were (7095) hits and for death penalty there were (6995) hits.
b) Looking at the few results the words death and penalty do not appear in the title, they appear in the following text.
c) If wanted the exact phrase death penalty then I would have to put the two words in quotation marks.
2) If d = death, p = penalty s = the phrase death penalty, c = the phrase capital punishment and n the phraseNew York
State. Form for your database and document the results for
a) D ^ P (7095) hits.
b) D v P (150,176) hits.c) S (6556) hits.d) S ^ N (658) hitse) S ^ ~N (51810) hits.f) S v C (7228) hits.g) S ^ C (731) hits. 3) Write up the rules (using the help screen) for using and, or, not and creating a phrase (exact phrase) in the database assigned to your group.
Focusing your Search by Using Boolean Operators
You can use special terms, called Boolean operators, to build searches that combine and exclude the words and phrases that make up your search.
Examples
Use OR to find documents that contain any one of several search terms:
Internet OR education finds documents mentioning the Internet, as well as documents mentioning education, or both.
Use AND to find documents containing two or more search terms:
Internet AND education finds documents mentioning the Internet and education.
Use AND NOT to exclude a search term:
Internet AND NOT education finds documents regarding the Internet, removing those documents mentioning education.
Using Phrases to Refine Your Search
If you’re searching for a specific phrase, place your phrase in quotation marks (” “). This lets ProQuest know you’re looking for documents where the words appear exactly in order.
Example
If you’re searching for information on animal hospitals, type the following: “small animal hospital” The following similar search yields very different results: small animal AND hospital
The second search finds any document in which both “small animal” and “hospital” appear within 250-words of one another. These results could include documents about the use of dogs and cats in hospitals for therapy.
The first search find records where the words “small animal hospital” occur in that order, not separated by other words. Therefore, the results of the first search are likely to include only documents dealing with veterinary care.
If your phrase is only two words long, ProQuest will automatically treat it as a phrase (as if it were in quotation marks). If your phrase is three words or longer, you must use quotation marks. Otherwise, ProQuest will treat the phrase as if the words were joined by AND, for example “small AND animal AND hospital.”
4) As the individual assignment (the group should decide who does a and who does b), re-do the previous part for:
I) Where d = Baseball, p = players, s = baseball players, c = drug abuse and n = steroid use.
a) D ^ P (15523) hitsb) D v P (200372) hitsc) S (4648) hitsd) S ^ N (17 hits)e) S ^ ~N (4580) hitsf) S v C (9111) hitsg) S ^ C (12) hits
II) Where d = global, p = warming, s = global warming, c = air pollution, and n = green house effect.
a) D ^ P (1657) hitsb) D v P (22094) hitsc) S (1631) hits d) S ^ N (106) hitse) S ^ ~N (1628) hitsf) S v C (3223) hitsg) S ^ C (33) hits
