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Field Limiting Searches

As was mentioned earlier, most search engines have an advanced search mode. In addition to allowing searches to be limited to such things as format, location, etc., these usually have several boxes for search entries. Each of the entry boxes also has a field delimiter drop-down box which allows you to search for your terms in more specific parts of the records, called fields.
In the search below, by searching for "energy" in the "Descriptors" field and "Florida" in the "Geographic Coverage Phrase", the search must be specifically about energy (unlike keyword searching) and must be focussed on Florida.

Searchable fields in ASTA

While the fields available vary from one database to another, "Descriptor" or "Subject" are always available.

Below, the search for the descriptor, "energy", and for the geographic coverage "florida" found 4 records.

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Results from ASTA field search
Notice in the results from searching "florida energy" in the basic, keyword search, more results come up, but few are really related to Florida's energy.
Results from ASTA keyword search
Keyword searching brings up many more irrelevant, "accidental" results.
Chapter 3, Page 23

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