Boolean Search Operators free essay sample

The Internet is a vast computer database. As such, its contents must be searched according to the rules of computer database searching. Much database searching is based on the principles of Boolean logic. Boolean logic refers to the logical relationship among search terms, and is named for the British-born Irish mathematician George Boole. On Internet search engines, the options for constructing logical relationships among search terms often modify the traditional practice of Boolean searching. This will be covered in the section below, Boolean Searching on the Internet. Boolean logic consists of three logical operators: †¢ OR †¢ AND †¢ NOT Each operator can be visually described by using Venn diagrams, as shown below. OR logic [pic] college OR university Question: I would like information about college. †¢ In this search, we will retrieve records in which NOT logic excludes records from your search results. Be careful when you use NOT: the term you do want may be present in an important way in documents that also contain the word you wish to avoid. We will write a custom essay sample on Boolean Search Operators or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page For example, consider a Web page that includes the statement that cats are smarter than dogs. The search illustrated above would exclude this document from your results. Combined AND and OR logic Question: I want information about the behavior of cats. Search: behavior AND (cats OR felines) You can combine both AND and OR logic in a single search, as shown above. The use of parentheses in this search is known as forcing the order of processing. In this case, we surround the OR words with parentheses so that the search engine will process the two related terms as a unit. The search engine will use AND logic to combine this result with the second concept. Using this method, we are assured that the semantically-related OR terms are kept together as a logical unit. Boolean Searching on the Internet When you use an Internet search engine, the use of Boolean logic may be manifested in three distinct ways: 1.