Introduction

There are various estimates of several hundred thousands to as many as 1.8 million different words used in the ecumenical and welcoming embrace of the English language. Of course, this includes numerous foreign words that have been adopted (pho, tatami, bangra, chocolate, avocado, llama, and endless more) and a seemingly limitless number of scientific/medical/technical terms (normotriglyceridemic abetalipoproteinemia, Van der Waals bond, icosadodecohedron, serial storage Architecture).

So, how do we navigate through such a rich vocabulary when we are searching. I provided a clue in the last set of examples: phrases. Searching for an ordered sequence of words is one of the most powerful searches that you can do because of the increased precision you achieve when your are looking for a logical and expected phrase appropriate to your search. There are many kinds of phrases that are useful for searching. These include names of people or places, quotes, titles, scientific names, and much, much more.

But, you must be aware that in Dialog:

• Some fields are "phrase-indexed," which means that the content of the particular fields that are indexed must be searched for as a phrase. You are not searching for individual words.
• Other fields are "word-indexed," meaning all individual words and their locations in each field have been indexed. Words in these indexes can also be searched for as phrases, but you must use proximity operators to do so.
• You must look at the Bluesheets for individual databases show how the individual fields are indexed, either by word or by phrase.

Doing Phrase Searching in Dialog

In Phrase-Indexed Fields:

• In phrase-indexed fields, you merely need to enter the content as it should be displayed in the field
• Example: S au=swift, jonathan

In fields that are Word-Indexed

• In word-indexed fields, you usually use the (w) operator or just the parens () alone to create a phrase that you want to search for.
• Example: ss jonathan()swift and english(w)satire