Glossary

Boolean search

A type of search that employs Boolean or logical operators. These operators can be manipulated to narrow search results. The operators available in Britannica CD are ADJ (adjacent), AND, NOT, and OR and must be entered in uppercase letters.

Browser

A client program that enables you to search through the information provided on a World Wide Web server. Netscape is a browser.

Case sensitivity

Concept that determines whether your query is entered using capital letters or lowercase letters. For best results, enter all search requests in lowercase letters unless you are looking for a specific acronym such as UNESCO or AIDS.

Flag

Hitlist

The list of references, either from the Index or text, that is generated from your query.

Home Page

The first page accessed when you open Britannica CD and begin to conduct your searches.

Hotlink

See hypertext link.

HTML

See Hypertext Markup Language.

Hypertext link, hyperlink, or hotlink

Any underlined word in Britannica CD. When selected the link leads the user to another screen.

Hypertext Markup Language

Language used to mark-up text files with styles and links for use with World Wide Web browsers such as Netscape. Abbreviated as HTML.

Identifier

Term used in the Index that categorizes the index entry head. It appears in parenthesis after the index entry head and is searched through an informative tag.

Index entry head

Term or phrase which is searchable in the Index Search. All of these terms have been taken from the printed encyclopaedia and are hypertext linked.

Informative tag

An operator that allows you to limit the search to a particular field. In text they are "title=" and "content=", and in the Index "identifier=" is used. "Title=" looks for titles only, "content=" looks for text in the article database, and "identifier=" looks for identifiers in the Index database.

Keyword

Any word that can be retrieved by the search engine.

Natural-Language search

Type of search which employs commonly used language, such as phrases and questions. It is not necessary for you to be familiar with specific search operators, like Boolean, to retrieve articles.

Stopword

Common words, such as “is,” “the,” and “why,” which the search engine ignores or drops out when it searches. Stopwords do not exist in the Index, only in articles. A list of stopwords is available.

Subentry or flag

Word or phrase listed under an index entry head that describes the specific context of the reference.

Truncation

Refers to the dropping of the final “s” or “es” in words during basic searches. This happens in text searches when the search term is entered in lowercase. This allows both plural and singular forms of a word to be located in a search.

WAIS, or Wide Area Information Servers

Search engine characterized by its ability to do keyword searches and provide relevancy feedback.

World Wide Web

A network of hypertext-linked documents or pages that also permit the display of graphics.