Provençal
Database
General User Documentation for
PhiloLogic
Database-Specific Searching Tips
Bibliographic Searching:
Author:
At this time the apostrophe in the author field is not working properly.
Thus block-copying a name such as
Guilhem de l'Olivier will produce a
"No documents found" message. Try searching for the most distinctive
string such as Olivier or use a boolean character (e.g. guilhem de
l|olivier).
Hyphens do work and must be used for accurate results.
Title:
Some titles in the Provençal database are quite long
and may contain various forms of punctuation and accentuation. In
searching the bibliography by title, one should use a minimum number of
terms, choosing a term or terms that are unique within the bibliography.
At this time the following punctuation marks and symbols produce
a "No documents found" message: semi-colons (;), colons (:),
and apostrophes ('). Avoid using any of these symbols in the title
field (e.g., search for chansons|amour rather than
Chansons d'Amour). The following punctuation marks have no
adverse effect on a
title search and, if appearing within a string, must be entered:
hyphen (-), comma (,) and accent marks.
Date: The texts in the database range in date from
1130 to 1300.
Orthographic Considerations:
Leaving off an accent is the
equivalent of a misspelled word. For details on how to represent accents
and other diacritical markings, check the general
documentation. One of the ways to handle this problem in cases where
the user is unsure about accent, or where the source data varies, is to
simply turn on the Cap Lock and type in all uppercase, which will find the
characater with OR without the accent. Thus, entering POESIE
finds the word poésie as well as poesie, both of
which are found in the title field of this database. This is best since
accentuation is
not always consistent.
Data-Entry Idiosyncrasies:
Several data errors have been detected in some
databases either from typesetting errors in the
original source or from rekeying the documents.
One should definitely avoid making arguments
from silence. Fortunately, at this time no errors have been
found in the Provençal database.
Punctuation and Full-Text Searching
Apostrophes:
It is
important to remember that leaving off an apostrophe in the
search text(s) for: field is the equivalent of misspelling
a word: the search engine will not find it. More importantly, an
extra space has been inserted between the apostrophe and the
following word which must be taken into consideration when
searching. For example, if searching
for fin' amors you must include the apostrophe as well
as an additional space before the following word. Another
way to handle this problem in cases where the user is unsure about
the apostrophe, or where the source varies, is to simply use
wildcard characters (e.g., fin.* amor.*
will retrieve fin' amor and fin' amors).
Formatting and Display
Search Results Display:
Note that when generating results using a KWIC report, all words following
the search term(s) will appear in boldface.