Examples of the ecoi.net COI Thesaurus (Moderated Search)
The following examples serve to illustrate how the COI Thesaurus can help you to refine your search:
Moderated Search - the COI Thesaurus
The ecoi.net search engine automatically includes English and German synonyms and near synonyms of your search terms. This has been made possible by linking a bi-lingual COI Thesaurus to our search.
In addition to that, we now introduce a "Moderated Search", which helps you to narrow down or to broaden your search. Whenever you search for a word included in the COI Thesaurus, the Moderated Search suggests broader, narrower and related terms. Click on the check-box of the appropriate search operator, and the term will be added to your search terms.
Example: broaden your search with 'OR'
You are looking for information on the situation of Pentecostals in Tajikistan. A search for the term pentecostals in Tajikistan only results in 10 documents.
The Moderated Search finds the term Pentecostals in the COI Thesaurus and proposes the broader term (BT) Protestantism. To get more results, select the OR-operator by clicking on its check-box and then on the Search-button.
You now have more than 40 results which you can check for relevance. Many sources do not differentiate as much as would be required to find very specific terms. They often use broader terms, like Protestants, or Christians, for specific denominations, like Pentecostals in this example.
After adding the term Protestantism to your search, the Moderated Search proposes broader, narrower and related terms for Protestantism, too. If you think the results for the search Pentecostals OR Protestantism are not enough, you can select other proposed terms, like Christianity (broader term for Protestantism) combined with OR.
Example: narrow down with 'AND' & 'NOT'
You are looking for information on the May 2007 parliamentary elections in Armenia. Simply searching for elections in Armenia gives too many results, as presidential elections took place in 2008.
The term 'elections' is included in the COI Thesaurus, therefore the Moderated Search proposes related (narrower, broader, or otherwise related) terms. To narrow down your search, click on the checkbox for 'AND' for the narrower term (NT) Parliamentary elections and click on the 'Search'-button again.
If you still get too many results, you can exclude documents containing 'Presidential elections' by clicking on the 'show more'-link to view all the terms associated with 'elections' and then on the 'NOT'-checkbox for 'Presidential elections'. (Please bear in mind, however, that documents dealing with the parliamentary elections might also include the term 'presidential elections' and therefore be excluded, too.)
In the image to the left, the term 'voter registrations' has been added to the search as well.
Please note:
Synonyms and near synonyms (in English and German) are included automatically whenever a term is found in the Thesaurus. This means they will also be included for each term you add with the Moderated Search.
You can switch these features off by deselecting the inclusion of related terms under the Advanced Search options.
Click here for background information on the COI Thesaurus.
