Questia 101

April 26, 2001

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Hilton: How do I narrow my search?

Mark: The user can narrow his search two different ways. The first method is by going into Power Search, and selecting one of the 28 Library of Congress subject categories, and putting a checkmark into the box area that he is interested in. Once he checks off the categories he's interested in, he can type in his query, and hit the "Submit Query" button. The second method is from Quick Search. Once he does either a title or author search, or a full text search, the user has two different options from the Search Results page to narrow his results. The first method is by searching within the results, by typing in another key word, and hitting the "Go" button. Once he does this, it will invoke a search on the publications that he received from the initial search. The second method to narrow the search results within the search results page is by selecting a subject heading category on the left side of the page. If the user selects one of the subject headings on the left side of the screen, it will invoke a search on the previous search results received by the user, and will find an exact match within the initial search results.

Suzan: Another great way to narrow your results is if you find a title that is right on point in your search results, click the button "More like this." That will bring up a pop-up box that gives you just a few related subjects that you can check, and do a search on.

Mark: One neat feature of the service is that the search, and receiving of the search results are free! So a user can print out search results and take them to their own library, and find the publication. Now, if the user would like to read the entire full text of the article or journal, as well as have access to a host of research tools, the user can pay $9.95 for a one-week subscription, $19.95 for a monthly subscription, and $149.95 for an annual subscription.

Askley: I got no results. What did I do wrong?

Suzan: Well, Askley, I'm sure you didn't do anything wrong! You may want to first consider doing a Full Text Search to see if this returns more results. This search will go into every page of publications in the Questia Collection to look for matches.

Mark: Another method to find a book that might interest you is selecting "Explore By Topic." By selecting "Explore By Topic," Askley, for instance, can find the books that she's looking for by selecting a host of subjects and topics that are mapped to the Questia Academic Categories--categories that are concentrated on the humanities and social sciences, or your basic liberal arts courses.

Martin: How do I do a search on multiple words at the same time?

Suzan: Well, Martin, if you'd like to do a Quick Search, and put the words next to each other, it will automatically put an "and" in between the words. If you are in Power Search, you can use the different drop-down boxes, and use the "Any of the words" option or "All the words" option, or even "Exact phrase" before you submit your query.

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