Go to the Product Home Page View and pick from a list of all authors in the database Find sources by specific criteria Find authors by specific criteria Find encounters between groups of people by specific criteria Search the texts for words, phrases and more Search texts of letters only for words, phrases and more Search multiple fields to examine the texts for words, phrases and more Click here for comprehensive help Search the database and external web sites for maps, prints and illustrations
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Table of Contents

6. RESULTS


1. GUIDED TOUR

A basic 10 minute guided tour that shows the major features of the database is available. Please CLICK here for more.

2. INTRODUCTION

2.1 INTRODUCTION

Early Encounters in North America provides sophisticated searching across large numbers of primary documents, as well as table of contents access to a wide array of primary sources. It also provides databases of encounters and images.

For novices who wish to get quick access to key documents, we recommend using the Tables of Contents and the Simple Search tools.

For scholars who wish to conduct in-depth searches we recommend using the Advanced Search and Find Sections Search. The search value of some of the fields in the database will not become apparent until more documents are added.

2.2 DATABASE FUNCTIONALITY

There are three basic ways to use the database.

  • Tables of Contents -- Use these to see what's contained in the database. This is the best way to check whether an author, a source, a date is included. It's also the best way to see what fauna, flora, peoples and encouters are in the database. To use this tool, simply click on the appropriate table of contents button on the navigation bar.
  • Find Tools -- The "FIND" tools let you search for specific authors or specific works in the database. Find Authors returns a list of all authors that match your specific criteria. Find Sources returns a list of all sources (works and manuscripts) in the database. The difference between the "FIND" tools and the "SEARCH" tools (explained next) is in the results they give. The "FIND" tools do not return documents, but rather lists of sources and authors. Note the difference between a source (a collection of documents) and the documents themselves (items within a source).
  • Search Tools -- The "SEARCH" tools let you analyze words and documents that meet your search criteria. The "SEARCH" tools return documents or bibliographic citations or both. In this database the search tool searches an entire volume.

2.3 DATABASE STRUCTURE - SECTIONS AND SOURCES

There are three types of documents in the database

  • Sources -- These are rekeyed volumes of primary works, some of which consist of works by different authors.  The rekeyed sources replicate the original paper works, and can be browsed using the original tables of contents.
  • Sections within Sources -- Letters, diary entries, speeches, testimony, chapters and other sections within a source been separated so that they can be retrieved independently of each other.  Using Find Sections within Sources you can retrieve sections by particular authors, that have particular subjects and much more.  Sections are the basic indexing unit of the database.  Each section has been marked up by as many as 25 different fields.
  • Images -- Images can be viewed within texts and independently of texts.  You can browse images by author in the Author Table-of-Contents or search for them by various fields in the Find Images

Viewing Details: For Authors, Sources, Images, Encounters and Sections within sources you may view the full bibliographic details whenever you see links to 'details'.  In the Author TOC simply click on the '1' to see the details associated with an author.

2.4 SEARCH NAVIGATION BAR

The Search Navigation Bar lets you move around the database retrieval tools, including the Search tools. It is the same as the Tables of Contents tool bar, except that the Search tools are expanded, and the Tables of Contents tools are reduced. You can toggle between the two by clicking Tables of Contents in the red section indicated above. (The graphic above is just an illustration; it does not have live links.)

The Search tools are divided into three separate categories, all of which search the texts in the database and return documents:

  • Simple Search - for novice users or those wishing to do a quick search. It provides basic searching
  • Advanced Search - all fields, except specific letter fields
The yellow color indicates which Search tool you are currently using. As you move from tool to tool, the yellow moves to indicate which tool you've selected. You may click on the red parts of the Navigation Bar to move to the appropriate tool.

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2.5 TABLE OF CONTENTS NAVIGATION BAR

The Tables of Contents Navigation Bar lets you move around the Tables of Contents tools. It works in the same way as the Search Tool bar. When using these tools, the Tables of Contents are expanded and the Full Text Searches are collapsed. You can toggle between the two by clicking Tables of Contents or Search.

The Tables of Contents are divided into eleven separate categories, all of which provide quick access to specific documents within the database.

The yellow indicates which table of contents you are using. The yellow moves as you move from tool to tool. You may click on the maroon parts of the Navigation bar to move to the appropriate tool. (The graphic above is just an illustration; it does not have live links.)

2.6 NOTES ON MARK-UP CONVENTIONS

Materials in the database have been transcribed using original spellings and grammar. In some documents spelling is inconsistent, even within a sentence.

For more information on mark-up conventions, contact the Editor.

2.7 ABOUT THE SEARCH SOFTWARE

PhiloLogic, a suite of software developed by the ARTFL Project at the University of Chicago in collaboration with The University of Chicago Library's electronic text services, provides sophisticated searching of large encoded databases on the World Wide Web. It is an easy to use yet powerful full-text search, retrieval, and reporting system for large multimedia databases (texts, images, sound) with the ability to handle complex text structures with extensive indexed metadata. PhiloLogic in its simplest form serves as a document retrieval or look up mechanism whereby users can search relational databases retrieve given documents and, in some implementations, portions of texts such as acts, scenes, articles, or head-words. This same document retrieval       mechanism serves as the basis for defining a corpus in a full-text search.  One can, for example, either retrieve all documents in a database written       by women from 1935 through 1945 or one can search for words or phrases within database which fit those criteria. The typical PhiloLogic search is       broken down into five distinct stages: 1) defining a corpus (i.e. limiting a search), 2) word expansion, 3) word index searching, 4) text extraction, and 5) link resolution and formatting (e.g., SGML to HTML conversion). In other words, after defining a corpus (or one may search an entire database), one can execute a single term, phrase or proximity search. By looking up indices of the word(s) in a relational database, PhiloLogic extracts blocks of text containing the search term(s) with links to larger blocks of text. These extracts are formatted to display on a Web browser and sometimes include links to images, sound recordings, other texts, or even other databases.    In addition to simple word and phrase searches, users can perform more  sophisticated searches by using extended UNIX-style regular expressions for complex wildcard searching and, in some implementations, morphological and orthographic expansion. All of these mechanisms to expand words can be combined using Boolean operators such as OR (the vertical bar "|") and AND (a space) within a variety of searching contexts.

Its functions were originally designed for scholarly research in databases of literary, religious, philosophical, and historical collections of texts as well as important historical encyclopedias and dictionaries. PhiloLogic handles notes so as not to interfere with phrase searching. Users can easily search words with diacritics (either by specifying accents or ignoring them by typing in uppercase) and non-Romanized scripts. At present there are some fifty databases on the Web under PhiloLogic containing languages such as ancient Greek, Latin, Hindi, and Urdu as well as nearly all Western European languages. PhiloLogic can also be set up to recognize or ignore manuscript notations such as different brackets, which can indicate spurious text or editorial emendations. Because the software recognizes typical text structures as real data objects, it understands units, such as words, sentences, paragraphs, sections, and pages, permitting very flexible searching and retrieval of these textual objects. Other full-text engines on the market search for strings of characters. Rather than searching for two words within the same sentence or paragraph (intellectual units), other engines must search for two words within a certain number of characters regardless of sentence or paragraph. With PhiloLogic scholars always know where they are in a given text since pagination can be displayed along side other objects. Such a high degree of indexing can lead to decreases in speed, PhiloLogic indexing has been maximized such that it is still incredibly fast on the Web.

For more information on PhiloLogic, contact Catherine Mardikes, ETS Coordinator, The University of Chicago Library.

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3. FINDING TOOLS

3.1 FIND SOURCES

The Find Sources tool lets you find all the original works in the database that match your specific criteria. For example, you can find out all the sources published by the Pennsylvania Historical Society or see whether a particular edition is included.

Practical Example:
Find all sources that have slavery as a subject.

Note: For a detailed discussion of the fields in Find Sources see the section on Fields and their Descriptions below.

3.2 FIND AUTHORS

The Find Authors tool lets you find authors in the database that match your specific criteria. For example, you can find all the authors in the database that were born between 1620 and 1630.

Practical Example:
Find all Naturalists in the database.

Note: For a detailed discussion of the fields in Find Authors see the section on Fields and their Descriptions below.

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3.3 FIND ENCOUNTERS

The Find Encounters tool lets you find encounters in the database that match your specific criteria. For example, you can find all encounters between Father Paul le Jeune and the Huron.

Practical Example:
Find all encounters that were trade encounters. 

Note: For a detailed discussion of the fields in Find Encounters see the section on Fields and their Descriptions below.

3.4 FIND IMAGES

The Find Images tool lets you find images in the database that match your specific criteria. For example, you can find all images created by Theodor de Bry.

Practical Example:
Find all images created by John White.

Note: For a detailed discussion of the fields in Find Images see the section on Fields and their Descriptions below.

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4. SEARCHING

4.1 SEARCH OVERVIEW

There are two basic kinds of searching in the database.

The conventions used in each kind of searching are slightly different as shown below.

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4.2 FULL-TEXT SEARCHING

4.2.1 Full-Text Searching

Full-Text Searching is when you search for specific words or phrases that occur in the texts themselves.

PhiloLogic supports wildcard characters and Boolean (logical) operators, which are modeled on UNIX regular expressions to perform "pattern matching" in full-text searching. Pattern matching allows identification of a large number of words corresponding to a defined pattern. Wildcard characters can be useful, for example, in identifying cognates made obscure by affixes and vowel weakening, inconsistencies due to irregular orthography, and variations on account of word inflection as well as for discovering potential emendations for uncertain readings. The most commonly used regular expression operators (wildcard and Boolean) are listed below.

4.2.2 Wildcard Characters in Full-Text Searching

. (period):
matches any single character (e.g., gentlem.n will retrieve gentleman and gentlemen).
* (asterisk):
matches any string of characters, anchoring the match at the beginning of a word (e.g., cigar* will match cigar, cigars, cigarette, etc.).
* (asterisk):
matches any string of characters, anchoring the match at the end of a word (e.g., *habit will retrieve habit, cohabit, and inhabit), or in the middle (e.g., c.*eers matches compeers, cheers, and careers).
.? (period question mark):
matches the characters entered or the characters entered plus one more character in place of the question mark (e.g., hono.?r matches both honor and honour and cat.? matches cat and cats, but not cathedral, Catherine, etc.).
[a-z] (brackets):
matches a single character found in the specified range (e.g., [c-f]at will match cat, dat, eat, and fat) or any letters within the brackets (e.g., civili[zs]e will match both civilize and civilise).
# (hash mark):
matches capitalized words only (e.g., #bacon will retrieve Bacon, but not bacon). Otherwise word searches are case insensitive. Please note that this operator does not work properly in conjunction with the vertical bar (e.g., searching #hamlet|#bacon will not retrieve accurate results).
E (capital letter):
matches all accented and non-accented forms (e.g., to search naïveté regardless of accents type naIvetE).

Note: If you are using wildcard characters and would like to see a full list of the words matching your search-term, then run your search as a Frequency by Author search. The results page of a Frequency by Author search lists all the terms found in a database that match your search-term.

4.2.3 Wildcards and Boolean Operators in Full-Text Searching

  • Space: serves as the AND operator in sentence and paragraph Proximity Searching (e.g., church state retrieve all cases where church and state appear in the same specified context; this is not the case in phrase searching).

  • These expressions can be combined for more sophisticated searches; for example, searching
    old|aged|ancient m.n|fellow*
    finds any of the three adjectives together with the nouns man or fellow in the singular or plural.

4.2.4 Punctuation and Full-Text Searching

4.2.5 Selecting a Search Option

PhiloLogic at this time offers two kinds of searches: "Single Term and Phrase Search," which is set up as the default, and "Proximity Searching in the Same Sentence or Paragraph." One may select and deselect a search option by clicking on the "radio" buttons.

For a fuller discussion see the PhiloLogic User Manual

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4.3 FIELD SEARCHING

4.3.1 Searching in Specific Fields

When entering search terms in bibliographic fields, as opposed to the full text search box, use the following Boolean operators: uppercase AND, OR, and NOT. One can use a NOT operator by itself (e.g., in the Type field enter: NOT editorial). It must be the first term in the box with no spaces preceding and it cannot be used with other Boolean operators

4.3.2 Advanced Field Searching with Regular Expression Operators

As in full text searching, one can use regular expression operators for more specialized searching. The caret sign (^) at the beginning of a word anchors the match at the beginning of the entry (e.g., ^child will find the personal event "Childbirth," but not "Adoption of Child). One can also use the vertical line (|) as a Boolean operator OR. With this operator one can exclude two terms from one's search (e.g., NOT adams|burr).

4.3.3 Punctuation and Spacing in Fielded Searching

When entering terms, punctuation and spacing must match exactly that in the fields. The following marks of punctuation produce a "Nothing found" message: ampersand (&), parentheses, question mark, and double quotes (""). If necessary for searching, replace the mark of punctuation with a period, which stand for any single character.

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5. FIELDS AND THEIR DESCRIPTIONS

5.1 LIST OF ALL FIELDS THAT CAN BE SEARCHED

Here is a summary table of all fields in the database, showing which tool they can be found on. Detailed descriptions can be found below.

    Search Texts Find Tools
    Simple Search Advanced Search Letters Only Find Author Find Sources Find Encounters Find Images
1 Age at Death       x      
2 Artist             x
3 Author Name x x x x x    
4 Author of Source Work             x
5 Author's Gender x x x x      
6 Cultural Affiliation   x x x      
7 Cultural Events   x          
8 Cultural Groups   x       x  
9 Description [of Encounter]           x  
10 Document Type x x     x    
11 Editor or Translator         x    
12 Encounter Code           x  
13 Encounter Name x x x     x  
14 Encounter Type           x  
15 Estimated Number of People           x  
16 Expedition   x x     x  
17 Fatalities During Encounter           x  
18 Fauna   x          
19 Flora   x          
20 Geophysical Features   x          
21 Image Color             x
22 Image ID             x
23 Image Medium             x
24 Image Source             x
25 Image Subjects             x
26 Image Title             x
27 Image Type              
28 Keyword in Caption             x
29 Keyword in Content Note             x
30 Keyword in Descriptive Note             x
31 Keyword in Titles         x    
32 Language of Edition         x    
33 Location           x  
34 Month Written   x x        
35 Nationality x x x x      
36 Natural Phenomena   x          
37 Note       x      
38 Occupation   x   x      
39 Original Language         x    
40 Participants   x       x  
41 Personal Events   x          
42 Place of Birth       x      
43 Place of Death       x      
44 Place of Publication         x   x
45 Places Discussed   x x        
46 Previously Unpublished         x    
47 Publication Year         x    
48 Publisher         x    
49 Race x x x x      
50 Recipient   x x        
51 Record Number   x          
52 Religion x x x x      
53 Search Texts x x x        
54 Societal Role   x   x      
55 Start Day           x  
56 Start Month           x  
57 Start Year           x  
58 Subject Headings x x x   x x x
59 Title of Source Work             x
60 Where Sent (Geographical)   x x        
61 Where Written (Geographical)   x x        
62 Where Written (Setting)   x x        
63 Year of Birth       x      
64 Year of Death       x      
65 Year Written x x x        

 

 

5.2 FIELD DESCRIPTIONS WITH SAMPLE SEARCHES

5.2.1 Age at Death

Description: This is the age when the author died and is calculated from birth and death dates where they are available. It is optional. This field can be searched using Advanced Search and Find Authors only.

How to use this field: Key in the number of days or range of days in the box Age at Death. For example, 25 or 40-50.

Practical Example:

Find authors who were aged 50-100 before they died.
Click on the navigation bar to Search Texts

Note: To search for occurrences where we have been unable to determine a value, key in 9999 in the field box.

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5.2.2 Artist

Description: This is the name of the artist who created an artistic work. This will include all variant forms of the artists name including pseudonyms, pennames, nicknames or aliases. The same official form of the name is used regardless of the form used by the artist at the time of creation. It is required. 

How to use this field: Enter the name of the artist in the Artist field. This field can be searched using Find Images only.

Practical Example: See Author.

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5.2.3 Author Name

Description: This is the name of the author who wrote the text. The name will include all variant forms of the author's name, including pseudonyms, pennames, nicknames, and aliases. The same official form of the name is used regardless of the form used by the author at the time of writing.

How to use this field: Use this field to analyze word usage by a particular author, or find works written by a particular author. This field can be searched in Simple Search, Advanced Search, Letters Only Search, Find Authors, and Find Sources.

Practical Example: Find all text written by John Hariot.

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5.2.4 Author of Source Work

Description: See Author
 

5.2.5 Author's Gender

Description: This field indicates gender of the author.

How to use this field: Use this field to restrict your search to authors of one or the other gender. This option is available in Find Authors, Simple Search, Advanced Search, and Letters Only. Gender is indicated by an M or an F.

Practical Example:Find all letters written by women authors.

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5.2.6 Cultural Affiliation

Description: This field is used to capture an author's cultural affiliation (i.e. English, American Indian).

How to use this field: Use this field to find works by author's of a particular cultural affiliation. This can be searched in Simple Search, Advanced Search, Letters Only, and Find Authors.

Practical Example: Find all texts by American Indian authors.

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5.2.7 Cultural Events

Description: This field indicates that a cultural event is being discussed in the document.

How to use this field: Use this field to find information about specific cultural events, such as feasts or gift-giving. Cultural events can be found through the Advanced Search.

Practical Example:
You are looking for documents that are about weddings.

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5.2.8 Cultural Groups

Description: This field contains the names of the cultural groups discussed in the documents.

How to use this field: Use this field to find documents about specific cultural groups. This field is available in Advanced Search and Find Encounters.

Practical Example: Find all documents about encounters with the Huron.

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5.2.9 Description [of Encounter]

Description: This field contains descriptions of the encounters found in the database.

How to use this field: Use this field to search descriptions of the encounters found in the database. This field is only available in Find Encounters.

Practical Example: Find all encounters that concern kidnappings.

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5.2.10 Document Type

Description: This field enables you to restrict the kinds of documents you search and retrieve.

How to use this field: Use this field to find specific types (i.e. letters, diaries, narrative, etc.) of documents. This is available in Advanced Search and Find Sources.

Practical Example:  Find all speeches by American Indians.

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5.2.11 Editor or Translator

Description: This field enables you to find sources or documents edited or translated by a particular person.

How to use this field: Use this field to find all sources edited or translated by a specific person. This search is available in Find Sources and Find Images.

Practical Example: Find all sources edited by Reuben Gold Thwaites.

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5.2.12 Encounter Code

Description: Enables you to search for encounters by a numeric code.

How to use this field: Use this field to find a specific encounter. This is only available in Find Encounters.

Practical Example: Find a specific encounter between the Spanish and American Indians.

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5.2.13 Encounter Name

Description: This field enables you to search encounters by a specific name.

How to use this field: Use this search to find a specific encounter. This is only available in Find Encounters.

Practical Example: Find me all encounters involving the Spanish.

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5.2.14 Encounter Type

Description: This field contains the type of encounter described in the text.

How to use this field: Use this field to find specific kinds of encounters between cultural groups (i.e. kidnap, battle, trade, etc.). This field is only available in the Find Encounters Field.

Practical Example: Find me all encounters that centered around trade.

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5.2.15 Estimated Number of People

Description: This field provides an estimated number of people that may have been involved in an encounter.

How to use this field: This field can be used to search for encounters in which a certain number of people were involved. This field is only available in Find Encounters.

Practical Example: Find all encounters in the database in which between 10 and 25 people were involved

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5.2.16 Expedition

Description: This field contains names of recognized expeditions. Expeditions are named based on The Atlas of North American Exploration: From the Norse Voyages to the Race to the Pole by William H. Goetzman and Glyndwr Williams.

How to use this field:Use this field to find documents about specific expeditions.

Practical Example: Find all documents about the the Hernando de Soto expedition to Florida.

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5.2.17 Fatalities during Encounter

Description: This is a Yes/No field that indicates whether or not there were fatalities during the encounter.

How to use this field: Use this field for searches for all encounters in the database that did or did not have fatalities. This field is only available in Find Encounters.

Practical Example: Find all fatal encounters where the Huron were involved.

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5.2.18 Fauna

Description: This field contains subject headings related to animal life in North America.

How to use this field: Use this field to find documents discussing animal life. This field can only be searched from the Advanced Search screen.

Practical Example: Find all documents that talk about beavers.

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5.2.19 Flora

Description: This field holds subject topics which describe plant life in North America.

How to use this field: Use this field to find all documents in the database that discuss a specific plant. This field is available only in Advanced Search.

Practical Example: Find all documents in the database that are about tobacco.

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5.2.20 Geophysical Features

Description: This field holds subject topics which describe North American geophysical feature, such as mountains, rivers, etc. 

How to use this field: Use this field to find documents that describe geophysical features found in North America. This field is only available in Advanced Search

Practical Example: Find all documents in the database that describe mountains.

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5.2.21 Image Color

Description: This field allows you to restrict to images with color, or that are black and white. This field does not search all images in the database. It is restricted to images that have value outside of the texts in which they were originally found.

How to use this field: Select the option  you want from the pick list. This field is only available in Find Images

Practical Example: Find black and white images in the database.

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5.2.22 Image ID

Description: This field is intended for quick access to a particular image.

How to use this field: Key in the exact Image ID number in the box. Image IDs always take the format Sxxxx-Ixx, where Sxxxx is the source from which the image came and Ixx is the image number within that source. This field is only available in Find Images

Practical Example: Find image S2995-I03.

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5.2.23 Image Medium

Description: This field lets you restrict to woodcuts, drawings and other media.

How to use this field: Key in the medium you are looking for into the Image Medium box. This field is only available in Find Images

Practical Example: Restrict your search to Woodcuts.

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5.2.24 Image Source

Description: This field lets you identify all images from a particular archive, or museum.   This field is not mandatory and is  populated only for manuscript material.

How to use this field: Key in the source you are looking for into the Image Source box. This field is only available in Find Images

Practical Example: Find all images from the University of California.

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5.2.25 Image Subject

Description: This field lets you find images of particular topical subjects.

How to use this field: Key in the subject you are looking for into the Image Subject box. To find out what subjects are available, click the terms button to the right of the Image Subject box. This field is only available in Find Images

Practical Example: Find all images of farming.

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5.2.26 Image Title

Description: This field searches the titles of images in the database.

How to use this field: Key in the title you are looking for into the Image Title box. To find out what titles are available, click the terms button to the right of the Image Title box. This field is only available in Find Images

Practical Example: Find all images with Indian in the title.

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5.2.27 Image Type (Not currently implemented)

Description: This field describes the kinds of images available in the database (paintings, woodcuts, etc.).

How to use this field: Use this field to limit searches of images to one specific kind of image. This field is not currently implemented.

Practical Example: Find all woodcuts indexed in the database.

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5.2.28 Keyword in Caption

Description: This field contains captions taken directly from the originals. In cases where the images are referred to within texts, the referring text is included.

How to use this field: Use this field to search for keywords in captions. This field is only available in the Find Images.

Practical Example: Find all captions that contain the word dance.

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5.2.29 Keyword in Content Note or Keyword in Descriptive Note

Description: Content Notes are created by our editors to describe the contents of images. Descriptive Notes are created by our editors for information about the image itself - for example, questions of provenance, earlier versions etc...

How to use this field: Use these fields to search for keywords in content notes or descriptive notes. This field is only available in the Find Images.

Practical Example: Find all content notes that contain the word Indian.

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5.2.30 Keyword in Source Note

Description: This field is to allow you to search bibliographic notes about the source described.

How to use this field: Use this field to search through notes on provenance, original editions and other miscellaneous information . This field is only available in Find Sources.

Practical Example: Find all notes that mention the word 'reprint'.

 

5.2.31 Keyword in Titles

See Titles

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5.2.32 Language of Edition

Description: This field provides the language of the edition of the source.

How to use this field: Use this field to find sources written a specific language. This field is only available in Find Sources.

Practical Example: Find all sources in French.

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5.2.33 Location

Description: This field describes the location in which an encounter occurred.

How to use this field: This field is used to search for encounters that took place in specific geographical locations. This search is only available in Find Encounters.

Practical example: Find all encounters that took place in Florida.

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5.2.34 Month Written

Description: This field holds the month a document was written.

How to use this field: Use this field if you are interested in letters or diaries written in a specific month of a specific year. This field is available for searching in Letters Only and Advanced Search.

Practical Example: Find all documents written in December of 1750.

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5.2.35 Nationality

Description: This field describes the nationality of authors.

How to use this field: Use this field to restrict searches to authors of a specific nationality. This field is available in Advanced Search, Simple Search, Letters Only, and Find Authors.

Practical example: Find all Portuguese authors.

Note: This is a controlled field. Clicking on the Terms box will return a list of all nationalities currently indexed in the database.

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5.2.36 Natural Phenomena

Description: This field allows you to search for naturally occurring phenomena, such as storms or earthquakes.

How to use this field: Use this field to search for documents that describe specific natural phenomena. This field is only available in Advanced Search.

Practical Example: Find all documents that discuss nor'easters.

Note: This is a controlled field. Clicking on the Terms box will return a list of all natural phenomena currently indexed in the database.

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5.2.37 Note

Description: This field contains information about the publishing history of a source work.

How to use this field: Use this field to find sources that have a specific publishing history. This field is available in Find Sources.

Practical example: Find all sources that have also been published in Paris.

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5.2.38 Occupation

Description: This field describes the author's occupation, if any. It is an Optional field.

How to use this field: Use this field to find documents written by an author in a particular occupation - for example, all Teachers.

Note: All occupations throughout an author's life are entered. This is not tied to when the author is writing. An individual may have several occupations through their life.

Practical Example: Find me diaries written by diplomats.

Note: To see what Occupation terms are available click the Terms button. Copy terms that you want and paste them into the box. Be careful to delete any extraneous spaces or semicolons and replace them with the appropriate Boolean operator.

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5.2.39 Original Language

Description: This field contains the language in which the source was originally written.

How to use this field: Use this to find documents that were originally written in a certain language. This is only available in Find Sources.

Practical Example: Find me all documents originally written in Latin.

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5.2.40 Participants

Description: This field holds names of people who participated in encounters.

How to use this field: Use this field to find encounters in which a certain person participated. This field is searchable in Advanced Search, Letters Only, and Find Encounters.

Practical Example: Find all encounters in which John Smith was a participant.

Note: Clicking on the Terms button will bring up a list of all names indexed as participants in the database.

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5.2.41 Personal Events

Description: This field describes major life events that happen to the writer.

How to use this field: Use this field to find documents that describe a major life event occurring in the author's life. This field is available in Advanced Search

Practical Example: Find all authors whose spouse has died.

Note: To see a controlled list of Personal Events, click on the Terms button.

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5.2.42 Place of Birth

Description: This field contains the name of an author's birthplace.

How to use this field: Use this field to find authors from a particular area. This is available in Find Authors.

Practical Example: Find all authors born in Madrid, Spain.

Note: To see a list of all availble birthplaces, click on the Terms button next to the search box.

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5.2.43 Place of Death

Description: Describes the geographical location of an author's place of death.

How to use this field: Use this field to find information about people who died in a certain place.

Practical Example: Find me all authors who died in Florida.

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5.2.44 Place of Publication

Description: This field holds information about where sources where published.

How to use this field: Use this field to find sources published in a specific geographic location. This is available in Find Sources.

Practical Example: Find all sources published in New York.

Note: Clicking on the Terms button will respond with a list of all geographical locations available in this field.

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5.2.45 Places Discussed

Description: This field holds information about geographical locations discussed in documents.

How to use this field: Use this field to find documents that discuss a specific geographical location. This field is available in the Advanced Search and Letters Only screens.

Practical Example: Find me all documents about the Great Lakes region.

Note: Clicking on the Terms button will respond with a list of all geographical locations available in this field.

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5.2.46 Previously Unpublished

Description: This field shows whether a source has never before been published.

How to use this field: Use this field to search for manuscripts. This search is available in Find Sources.

Practical Example: Find all manuscripts.

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5.2.47 Publication Year

Description: This field holds the year sources were published.

How to use this field: Use this book to find sources by the year they were published. This is available in Find Sources.

Practical Example: Find all sources published between 1700 and 1850.

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5.2.48 Publisher

Description: This field indicates the publisher of a source.

How to use this field: Use this field to find sources published by specific publishers. This is available in Find Sources.

Practical Example: Find me all books published by Random House.

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5.2.49 Race

Description: This field provides information about the author's race.

How to use this field: Use this field to restrict searches to authors of a specific race. This search field is available in Simple Search, Advanced Search, Letters Only, and Find Authors.

Practical Example: Find all American Indian authors.

Note: Clicking on the Terms button will return a list of the controlled vocabulary terms for Race in the database.

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5.2.50 Recipient

Description: This field indicates the name of the person to whom a letter is addressed.

How to use this field: Use this field to search for letters sent to a specific person. This search is available in Letters Only and Advanced.

Practical Example: Find all letters sent to Sir Walter Raleigh.

Note: Clicking on the Terms button returns a list of all people who are indexed as recipients in the database.

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5.2.51 Record Number

Description: This field holds the Alexander Street Press assigned record number for each document

How to use this field: This field can be used to call up a specific record for which the searcher has the number. This field is available in Advanced Search.

Practical Example: Get record number AC00043-FRE01-D0009.

Note: The record number must be made up ACXXXXX-Language AbbreviationXX-DXXXX.

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5.2.52 Religion

Description: This field holds information about the religion of the author.

How to use this field: Use this field to limit searches to authors of a specific religion. This field is available in Simple Search, Advanced Search, Letters Only, and Find Authors.

Practical Example: Find me all letters by authors who were Catholic.

Note: Clicking on the Terms button will return a list of all religions indexed in the database.

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5.2.53 Search Texts

Description: This field allows free-text searching in the database.

How to use this field: Use this field to find examples of words in order to compare their usage across many sources. This is available in Simple Search, Advanced Search, and Letters Only.

Practical example: Find all mentions of the word savage.

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5.2.54 Societal Role

Description: Use this field to find authors who fulfilled a specific societal role. Societal roles are defined as positions that serve more of a purpose within a community than an occupation would.

How to use this field: Use this field to limit author searches to people who fulfilled certain societal roles. This field is available in Advanced Search and Find Authors.

Practical Example: Find me all authors who were healers.

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5.2.55 Start Day

Description: Contains information about the day an encounter took place.

How to use this field: Use this field to find documents that began on certain day of the year. This field is only available in Find Encounters.

Practical Example: Find all encounters that started on May 6, 1740.

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5.2.56 Start Month

Description: Contains information about the month an encounter took place.

How to use this field: Use this field to find encounters that began in a certain month. This field is only available in Find Encounters.

Practical Example: Find all encounters that started in June, 1697.

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5.2.57 Start Year

Description: This field contains information on the year an encounter took place.

How to use this field: Use this field to find encounters that began in a particular year. This field is only available in Find Encounters.

Practical Example: Find all encounters that took place in 1805.

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5.2.58 Subject Headings

Description: This is a composite field consisting of all terms in the Subject field, Name Subject field, Organization Subject field, Historical Events subject field, Topical Subject field, Broad Subject field, the Geographic Subject field, the Fauna Subject field, the Flora Subject field, the Geophysical field, the Natural Phenomena field, the Cultural Groups field, and the Participants field.

How to use this field: This field can be used to search a wide range of materials, including specific places, people, and environmental subjects. This field is available in Simple Search, Advanced Search, Letters Only, Find Sources, and Find Images.

Practical example: Find all materials about New York.

Practical example: Find all letters written about religious conversions.

Practical example: Find all documents about tobacco.

Practical example: Find all sources about Hernando de Soto.

Practical Example: Find all documents about the Hudson Bay Company.

Note: Clicking on the Terms button beside the Subject Headings box will return a list of all subjects indexed for this field.

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5.2.59 Title of Source Work

Description: This field contains the Title of a Source Work. A Source Work is defined as a book, website, or other collection of texts and or images. The Source Work should be used in any formal citations created for this database.

How to use this field: Use this field to find particular sources. This field is available in the Find Sources and Find Images field.

Practical Example: Find all sources that contain the word 'Western'

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5.2.60 Where Sent (Geographical)

Description: This field holds information about the geographical location to which a letter was sent.

How to use this field: Use this field to find letters sent to a specific geographical location. This field is available in the Advanced Search and Letters Only field.

Practical Example: Find all letters written to people in France.

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5.2.61 Where Written (Geographical)

See Where Sent (Geographical)

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5.2.62 Where Written (Setting)

Description: This field contains information about the kind of place a document was written (town, farm, mission, shipboard, etc.)

How to use this field: Use this field to compare textual differences in documents written in different kinds of settings. This field is available in Letters Only and Advanced Search.

Practical example: Find all documents written on board a ship.

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5.2.63 Year of Birth

Description: This field holds the year of the author's birth.

How to use this field: Use this field to find authors born in a particular year or range of years. This field is available in Find Authors.

Practical Examples: Find all authors born between 1650 and 1675.

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5.2.64 Year of Death

Description: This field contains the year of an author's death.

How to use this field: Use this field to find authors who died in a specific year or range of years. This field is available in Find Authors.

Practical Example: Find all authors in the database who died between 1800 and 1825.

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5.2.65 Year Written/Year Created

Description: This field holds the year a document was written.   This is an approximation and is only applied where the year written is clearly identifiable.  For example where letters or diary entries clearly identify it.

How to use this field: Use this field to find documents written during a specific year. This is available in Find Images, Simple Search, Advanced Search, and Letters Only.

Practical Example: Find all documents written in 1762.

 

6. RESULTS

6.1 OCCURRENCES WITH CONTEXT/CONTEXT DISPLAY

Occurrences with Context Display is the default results format option. This report indicates the number of texts searched, the search term(s) entered in a defined corpus, and the total number of occurrences found. (The number of occurrences displays at the top of the report if PhiloLogic has detected the number before generating the first 25 occurrences. If not, the total number of occurrences displays at the bottom of the report.) Following this general information is a list of occurrences.

Each occurrence is represented by a short citation consisting of abbreviations for the author's name and the title of the work with a reference to where the term(s) in question occur within the document. (Full entries for the short citations are listed in the Results Bibliography at the bottom of the report.) Along side the citation is listed several levels of context, shown in blue in the example below (links to the table of contents and occurrences have been disabled).


1. Winslow, Harriet Wadsworth Lathrop. "Diary of Harriet Wadsworth Winslow, August, 1814"
[Page 29 | Paragraph | Section | Document]

cordial welcome." 21. --When I reflect on the multitudes of my fellow-creatures who are perishing for lack of vision, and that I am living at ease, without aiding in the promulgation of the Gospel, I am almost ready to wish myself a man, that I might spend my life with the poor heathen. But I check the thought, and would not alter one plan of Infinite wisdom. I could, however, cheerfully endure pain and hardship for them, and for my dear Redeemer. Has he not given his life for multitudes now perishing, as well as for my soul? And Oh, how basely ungrateful and selfish in


Below the short citation there is a passage of text consisting of some forty words on either side of the key word, which is highlighted. PhiloLogic, however, displays as much text as needed to capture all words in a multi-term search and all search words are highlighted. The reference listed with the short citation is linked to the text. If clicking on the page number, one retrieves the full page with key words still highlighted. The same is true for paragraph and the three other levels of hierarchy. Links to the previous and next page, paragraph or levels respectively, if they exist, are provided.

Note: Remember that, when searching for two or more terms within the same paragraph, the context display expands the amount of text displayed to include all of the search terms in the paragraph. At times the text displayed in a proximity search to accommodate all the search terms may be several screens in length since some paragraph divisions in documents in some databases are very far apart.

In cases where a search finds more than 25 occurrences, PhiloLogic provides the first 25 occurrences with links at the bottom of the report to the remaining occurrences of the search in sets of one hundred. One may also retrieve a full list of occurrences which can be useful for down-loading or printing, but which may take some time to retrieve. Note: when results number over hundreds or thousands of occurrences, the report may not be complete when first starting to view results. In this case, one sees the message "The search is still in progress. 908 occurrences have been generated so far. (please follow the link(s) below to check on the progress) ". The server continues to append results until it has completed the entire report and, by clicking on any of the sets of one hundred, one can retrieve the full report.

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6.2 LINE-BY-LINE DISPLAY

The Line-by-Line display indicates the number of texts searched, the search term(s) entered in a defined corpus, and the total number of occurrences found. (The number of occurrences displays at the top of the report if PhiloLogic has detected the number before generating the first 25 occurrences. If not, the total number of occurrences displays at the bottom of the report.) Following this general information is a list of occurrences. Each occurrence is represented by a short citation consisting of abbreviations for the author's name and the title of the work with a reference to where the term(s) in question occur within the document. References (E.g. Bayley:D1266-14) are a concatenation of an Author abbreviation, the document identifier within the database, and the Page Number. The report is followed by the Results Bibliography, wherein you can find a full citation for the References in the report. Here is an example of the Line-by-Line display (links to the table of contents and occurrences have been disabled).


Bibliographic criteria: doctype=diary
Searching 1333 documents for scrup.*. Your search found 6 occurrences

Context Display Sorted by Author Sorted by Source

1. Morris:D43-3 (p.27)re. Jan. 31st, 1777 The scruples of my own mind being satisfied
2. Kemble:D757-4 (p.251)> time, Mrs.----, less scrupulous and without asking my leave
3. Dawson:D373-9 (p.263)rprise, so we did not scruple to leave Lilly.... The Baton Ro
4. Dawson:D373-6 (p.127) The soldiers did not scruple to laugh at us. Those who were
5. Dawson:D373-8 (p.219)of Charlie, so had no scruples about offering their services;
6. Dawson:D373-8 (p.230)ked because he was so scrupulously neat while the others were


A Line-by-Line Display differs from a Context Report in that it limits the text displayed to only a single line of text. The search term, which is highlighted, is centered in the line so that a user can quickly scan the results. At the bottom of the report one finds the Results Bibliography, which lists the full references for the short citations above. Unlike the Context report, a Line-by-Line Display only offers one level of linked context.

The user may toggle from the Line-by-Line Display to a Context Report or to the results sorted by Author and Sorted by Source.

In cases where a search finds more than 25 occurrences, PhiloLogic provides the first 25 occurrences with links at the bottom of the report to the remaining occurrences of the search in sets of one hundred. One may also retrieve a full list of occurrences which can be useful for down-loading or printing, but which may take some time to retrieve. Note: when results number over hundreds or thousands of occurrences, the report may not be complete when first starting to view results. In this case, one sees the message "The search is still in progress. [908] occurrences have been generated so far. (please follow the link(s) below to check on the progress) ". The server continues to append results until it has completed the entire report and, by clicking on any of the sets of one hundred, one can retrieve the full report.

Note: When executing a "Proximity Search," especially with paragraph set as the searching parameter, it is best to avoid the Line-by-line format since all search terms are not likely to be in the single line of text displayed. The term that is located first in the paragraph is the one that is centered in the single line of text. Using the Context results format ensures that all terms are included in the display even if the paragraph should happen to run for several pages. One can switch from a Line-by-line format to a Context Report format at any time while viewing results and switch back. PhiloLogic takes the user to the same set of results being viewed at the time of the switch.

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6.3 SORTING RESULTS BY AUTHOR

Results can be sorted using a Sorted by Author report. This report indicates how many times a work occurred in documents by a particular author. To do this choose Frequency by Author at the bottom of the Letter, Diary or Advanced Search screens, or select Sort by Author from the Context or Line by Line display.

A Sorted by Author report indicates the bibliographic criteria entered, the number of documents searched, the search term(s) entered, the number of unique forms derived from the search term(s) within the database, a list of those unique forms, and the total number of occurrences found in the defined corpus. Following this information, the report indicates the number of occurrences by author in descending order of frequency with individual titles listed with a link to the digital table of contents for each title and a link to the occurrences found within that title.

This report also shows what terms within a database one's search criteria are searching (for example, one can discover that entering the search term school.* in the database searches for all these unique terms above). See below for an example (links to the table of contents and occurrences have been disabled).


Bibliographic criteria: doctype=diary
Searching 1333 documents for convalesc.*.
Number of Unique Forms: 5

Search Terms: convalescence | convalescent | convalescents | convalescing | Convalescent

Your search found 10 occurrences.


Frequency by Author in descending numeric order:

1. Gibbons, Abigail Hopper, 1801-1893: 8
2: Diary of Abigail Hopper Gibbons, August, 1862[Occurrences]
2: Diary of Abigail Hopper Gibbons, November, 1861[Occurrences]
1: Diary of Abigail Hopper Gibbons, April, 1863[Occurrences]
1: Diary of Abigail Hopper Gibbons, March, 1863[Occurrences]
1: Diary of Abigail Hopper Gibbons, September, 1862[Occurrences]
1: Diary of Abigail Hopper Gibbons, July, 1862[Occurrences]
2. Winslow, Harriet Wadsworth Lathrop, 1796-1833: 1
1: Diary of Harriet Wadsworth Winslow, May, 1820[Occurrences]
3. Cary, Anne M.: 1
1: Diary of Anne M. Cary, October, 1827[Occurrences]


Any definable corpus or search can be used in generating this report. Unlike Context Display and Line-by-line reports, this report does not display text, only frequency statistics with links to occurrences displayed in Context display format. Note: the sets of occurrences linked to from the frequency report are numbered in chronological order, not by frequency. In other words, clicking on the [Occurrences] link for a title at the top of the list could, for example, bring up occurrences numbered 21-28 instead of 1-8 because that author's title while ranked first in frequency is not first chronologically.

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6.4 SORTING RESULTS BY SOURCE

Results can be sorted using a Sorted by Source report. To do this choose Frequency by Source at the bottom of the Letter, Diary or Advanced Search screens, or click on Sort by Source when in a context display.

This report indicates the bibliographic criteria entered, the number of documents searched, the search term(s) entered, the number of unique forms derived from the search term(s) within the database, a list of those unique forms, and the total number of occurrences found in the defined corpus. Following this information, the report indicates the number of occurrences by title in descending order of frequency with a link to the digital table of contents for each title and a link to the occurrences found within that title.

This report also shows what terms within a database one's search criteria are searching (for example, one can discover that entering the search term school.* in the database searches for all these unique terms above). See below for an example (links to the table of contents and occurrences have been disabled).


Bibliographic criteria: doctype=letter
Searching 1181 documents for measles.
Number of Unique Forms: 2

Search Terms: measles | Measles

Your search found 3 occurrences.


Frequency by Source in descending numeric order:

1. Life of Abby Hopper Gibbons: Told Chiefly through Her Correspondence, vol. 2: 2
2: Gibbons, Abigail Hopper, 1801-1893 Letter from Abigail Hopper Gibbons to Susan Hopper, June 6, 1863[Occurrences]
2. Life of Abby Hopper Gibbons: Told Chiefly through Her Correspondence, vol. 1: 1
1: Gibbons, Abigail Hopper, 1801-1893 Letter from Abigail Hopper Gibbons to Anne Warren Weston and Deborah Weston, March 24, 1841[Occurrences]


The Frequency by Source Report is useful if one is curious how frequently an author uses term(s) in one work as compared to his/her other works or in his/her works as compared to others' works.

Any definable corpus or search can be used in generating this report. Unlike Context Display and Line-by-line reports, this report does not display text, only frequency statistics with links to occurrences displayed in Context Display format. Note: the sets of occurrences linked to from the frequency report are numbered in chronological order, not by frequency. In other words, clicking on the [Occurrences] link for a title at the top of the list could, for example, bring up occurrences numbered 21-28 instead of 1-8 because that title while ranked first in frequency is not first chronologically.

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6.5 SORTING RESULTS BY YEAR (FREQUENCY BY YEAR)

Results can be sorted by using a Frequency by Year report. This report indicates how many times a work occurred in documents in a particular year. To do this choose Frequency by Year at the bottom of the Letter, Diary or Advanced Search screens.

A Frequency by Year report indicates the bibliographic criteria entered, the number of documents searched, the search term(s) entered, the number of unique forms derived from the search term(s) within the database, a list of those unique forms, and the total number of occurrences found in the defined corpus. Following this information, the report indicates the number of occurrences by title in descending order of frequency with a link to the digital table of contents for each title and a link to the occurrences found within that title.

This report also shows what terms within a database one's search criteria are searching (for example, one can discover that entering the search term craft* in the database searches for these unique terms). See below for an example (links to the table of contents and occurrences have been disabled).


Bibliographic criteria: doctype=letter
Searching 1181 documents for craft.*.
Number of Unique Forms: 3

Search Terms: craft | crafty | Crafts

Your search found 10 occurrences.


Frequency by Year in descending numeric order:

1. 1839: 4
2: Kemble, Frances Anne, 1809-1893 Letter from Frances Anne Kemble to Elizabeth Dwight Sedgwick, 1839[Occurrences]
1: Kemble, Frances Anne, 1809-1893 Letter from Frances Anne Kemble to Elizabeth Dwight Sedgwick, 1839[Occurrences]
1: Kemble, Frances Anne, 1809-1893 Letter from Frances Anne Kemble to Elizabeth Dwight Sedgwick, February, 1839[Occurrences]
2. 1840: 3
1: Steele, Eliza R. Stansbury Letter from Eliza R. Steele, July 12, 1840[Occurrences]
1: Steele, Eliza R. Stansbury Letter from Eliza R. Steele, July 11, 1840[Occurrences]
1: Steele, Eliza R. Stansbury Letter from Eliza R. Steele, June 14, 1840[Occurrences]
3. 1830: 2
1: Willard, Emma Hart, 1787-1870 Letter from Emma Hart Willard, December 8, 1830[Occurrences]
1: Willard, Emma Hart, 1787-1870 Letter from Emma Hart Willard to Almira H. Phelps, December 2, 1830[Occurrences]
4. 1831: 1
1: Willard, Emma Hart, 1787-1870 Letter from Emma Hart Willard, February 14, 1831[Occurrences]


The Sorted by Year Report is useful if one is curious how frequently a word appears over time. Any definable corpus or search can be used in generating this report. Unlike Context Display and Line-by-line reports, this report does not display text, only frequency statistics with links to occurrences displayed in Context Display format.

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6.6 NAVIGATING DOCUMENTS FROM WORD SEARCHES

In Context Display one finds several options for viewing more context around one's matched term(s). In addition to "page" and paragraph, you'll see section and page. These divisions reflect the logical organization of the document from smaller parts (paragraph) to larger parts document. What each level represents depends upon the text itself.

Each letter is considered to be a document, no matter how long it is. A diary is divided into paragraphs, sections (typically a day), and documents (a month of entries). For diaries with short entries you will find it easiest to view the full document. For diaries with longer entries you will find it easiest to view section by section.

Any part of any level may be selected by simply clicking on it. Once a user goes to a second level of context, he/she will find the search term(s) still highlighted. One may also find the next and previous sections for each level if one should wish to "flip through" the document by sections (provided that a next or previous section exists for a given level).

Notes: In PhiloLogic notes never interfere when searching the text to which they refer. Note references are linked to notes and occurrences in text from notes are linked to page references. Note and page references can be found on any level of context (e.g., Page, Paragraph, Section, Document), but not from a first-level results screen.

Images: Images are displayed as both inline images and linked to images once the user pulls up any level of context (e.g., Page, Paragraph, Section, Document), but not from a first-level results screen.

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Copyright © 2005 Alexander Street Press, L.L.C.  All rights reserved.
PhiloLogic Software, Copyright © 2005 The University of Chicago.