Glossary of Terms for TexShare

Abstract - A short summary of an article or other published work.

Advanced Search - Search option that offers a more precise strategy than a basic search. User is able to limit search, some common limiters offered in database searching are: year, publication, and full-text only.

Article Citation - Article publication information that includes: author, title, journal, date, and number of pages.

Boolean - Search operators such as AND, OR, and NOT used in between keywords to determine relationship of words and produce a more precise search.

Consortium - A group of organizations that have joined together to work on a shared goal.

Database - A searchable collection of data in electronic format.

E-Book - Electronic book. A book in digital format that is available online.

Full-Text - Entire text of an article or other document available in electronic format, photos and other images are usually omitted. Full-text articles are often available to print, save, or email.

Hyperlink - A highlighted image or text that provides a link to a new content area or web page.

Help Feature - A feature available in most databases that offers quick instruction in areas such as search techniques, research strategies, and key functions of the database .

Interlibrary Loan (ILL) - Service by which a library system loans or borrows materials from other libraries systems in order to make them avaialable to a wider patronage.

Journal - Scholarly periodical written with in-depth articles usually contained to a specific field and reviewed by peers or experts of that field.

Keywords - Words found in title, text, or subject headings of articles that are used in search strategies. Boolean operators may be used. This type of search does not offer as precise results as subject searches.

Magazine - Periodical written for general population concerning popular interests. Unlike journals these periodicals are not peer reviewed.

Mark list - List of article citations that have been marked/selected by users during a database search. This list is accessible only during the current search session.

PDF - Portable Document Format. An electronic file that may be viewed using the Adobe Acrobat program. Some articles/documents encountered in database searches are available in this format; however, the computer must have Adobe Acrobat program to view these PDF files.

Sort - A way to arrange the order of a list of articles in a database such as by date or alphabetical order. Sort options vary by database.

Subject Headings - Set words that are selected to describe an article. Searching by subject offers more precise results than keyword searching, since each article is assigned subject headings as descriptors.

Truncation - Search technique available in many databases using a symbol to represent a variety of possible letters in the middle or at the end of a word. An example of truncation is wom*n for women or woman.

This page was written by Amy Wander in Spring 2005.
This page was revised by Lianne Valerio in Spring 2009.
INF 382S: Library Instruction and Information Literacy, taught by Dr. Loriene Roy
School of Information, The University of Texas at Austin

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