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Search Techniques

Natural Language Searching

How it works

Some larger databases and web search engines may accept natural language searches. With this type of search, you may simply type in your search query using plain English.

For example:

"How does race affect the probability of receiving the death penalty?"
"How has mass spectrometry been used in planetary exploration?"
"What techniques are used in the conservation of works of art on paper?"

The search engine is programmed to take the words from your search and determine which words are relevant and which are not, and which words should receive a higher ranking than others. It then compares this information with the words that occur in the database records, selecting those records it "decides" are relevant to your research.

Results are usually returned in ranked order by relevance. Relevance may be determined by a number of factors, including the number of times words from your search query appear in the document, where they occur in the document, and how close together words from your search query appear in the document.

Advantages of natural language searching

you don't need to learn any special commands or search protocols; you can just type your question in plain English
results are ranked by relevance, with the most useful documents appearing first

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