Slice like a pro: Brackets for more than just smilie faces

:-) happy ;-) winking happy ;-)) with a double chin

Admit it. You've sent a smilie face to a a friend or two. But did you know brackets can bring you infinite joy when you're building your search strings? They're the crowdpleasers of the keyboard. Here's why...

1. Precedence
In Slice our search engine reads search strings from left to right, so to be sure of your search intent, use brackets. Brackets will group together your ideas and direct the search engine correctly. For example, say you want articles relating to computers in teaching or education. If you created this search string without brackets...

computers and teaching or education

... the search engine will process this string from left to right, with the "AND" request first, making the string read as "(Computers and Teaching) or Education" - which is a disaster! This string would give you all articles with the words "computers" AND "teaching", and then another bunch of articles which simply contain the word "education". This was not the intent of your orginial search!

But if you use brackets to clearly define your search as all articles containing the words "computers" AND either the words "teaching" OR "education" you would have a search string that looks like this:

computers AND (teaching OR education)
This will find articles containing the word "computers", and either "teaching" or "education".

The search string qualifer in Slice will help you with this too.


2. Clarity
Brackets work as a great visual aid when constucting complex strings. Here's an example of using brackets to break the search up into sections, for example:

computers AND (teaching OR education) NOT (higher OR secondary)
This will give news items containing the words "computers" and either "teaching" or "education", but will not give you the article is if the words "higher" or "secondary" are also in the article.

3. Variations
They're also helpful to group together variations of spellings which could be reported in various ways by the media. Here's an example if you were wanting to track stories about Dr Mike Whyte:

(Dr OR doctor) AND (Mike OR Michael) AND (Whyte OR White)

4. Combining searchesYou can also use brackets to bind together a series of searches to avoid having to develop separate tracking folders. For example if you wanted to track Dr Mike Whyte and Professor Jim McNamara here's what the string could look like:

((Dr OR doctor) AND (Mike OR Michael) AND (Whyte OR White)) AND ((Prof* OR Prf) AND (Jim OR James) AND (MacNamara OR McNamara))


We hope these tips have made you feel ;-)))))))

Tracking the media, monitoring the message

Doh! We couldn't help ourselves...

/.-( emo |:) unibrow @:^) elvis

Slice like a pro: Using the *asterisk*

Asterisk (Asterix) is more than a wacky French comic character... he's actually a very clever little minx when it comes to building great search strings.

In boolean speak, using an asterisk (sometimes also called a 'wildcard') at the end of a word will ensure you track all variations of how a word ends.

For example, placing an asterisk at the end of the word 'school*', will ensure you receive all news clips containing the words 'school', 'schools', 'schooling', 'schoolies' and 'schooled'.

Ski* will deliver news clips that have the words 'skiers', 'skis', 'skiing', or any other word starting with 'ski' present in the clip.

Reincarnat* will give you 'reincarnate', 'reincarnation', 'reincarnated' and 'reincarnates'.

Paint* will ensure you receive 'paints', 'painted' and 'painting'.

Helen* will return all articles with the word 'Helen', or 'Helens'.

An example of how a search string might include an asterix is:

environment* AND carbon AND (credit* OR trad*)

For more help information, check out the 'Help' link on your toolbar when you login to Slice. You can also download a pdf help file to have as a handy reference when building your search strings.

For other tips on building search strings, check out 'Slice like a pro' category on our blog here.

Tracking the media, monitoring the message

Slice like a pro: Underscores (and the city)

OK Slicers hold on to your cosmopolitans... you're about to make friends with "_" (the underscore).

You will know from using our search string builder, that to build a search string you need to use the 'boolean' commands 'AND', 'NOT' or 'OR'. These commands sit in between the words or phrases we want to track - for example 'Sarah Jessica Parker' AND 'shoes' - this gives us all news items containing both the phrase 'Sarah Jessica Parker' and the word 'shoes' in the same article.

But what happens when the word 'and' is also in the phrase you want to track - like 'Sex and the City' for example?

When creating your search string that contains the word 'and' in a phrase, you need to use an underscore. The underscore should always be included before the "_and" so we can pick it up as a word and not a command. Here's some examples:

Search string #1 - no underscore: Sex and the City
This search string will be read by the search engine as Sex AND the city - so ALL items that contain the word 'sex' and the phrase 'the city' will be delivered, when really you only wanted articles relating to the 'Sex and the City' TV show.

Search string #2 - using the underscore: Sex _and the City
This search term will only return articles with the exact phrase "Sex and the City". Finally, Manolo Blahnik heaven.

Remember, if you come a cropper in the search string stakes, call us and one of the posse will help get your search strings looking as good as Charlotte in vintage Chanel.

Tracking the media, monitoring the message

Slice like a pro: getting help

As a Slicer you may have already come across our handy 'help' page on our website, but did you know you can also download the 'help' page as a PDF? The link for this is at the top of the 'Help' page, once you've logged in.

So if you're looking for a little extra gusto when it comes to putting your search strings together, having the boolean examples printed next to you can be a gem. Infact, a little insider tip - we use the help doc all the time to keep us on track too!

Tracking the media, monitoring the message

Improve your search

I was recently contacted by a subscriber who had a long complicated search string and she wanted some tips on improving it. The string looked something like this:

(Acme AND (camping OR adventure OR yacht)) OR Acme Outboards OR (ABC AND camping) and Acme World Yacht Race

To improve her search, we gave her the following advice:

Keep it simple: one idea per tracking folder: If you have enough tracking folders, set up a folder for each idea you searching for – try to avoid combining keywords or issues in the same string, unless you feel very confident about creating boolean strings. In this case, she could have set up four tracking folders, one for each of the ideas she was tracking:

Acme AND (camping OR adventure OR yacht)
Acme Outboards
ABC AND camping
Acme World Yacht Race

Stick with the search string builder: if you’re unsure about how to build boolean strings, it’s best to stick with the search string builder. The search string builder was specifically designed to help people who had never built search strings. The search string builder will also ask you qualifying questions to ensure Slice knows exactly what you want to track.

Use brackets: If you do feel confident about using the free text box, build each of your ideas separately first, bracket each idea, then combine them. The original string would then look like this:

(Acme AND (camping OR adventure OR outdoor)) OR (Acme Outdoors) OR
(ABC AND camping) OR (Acme World Yacht Race)

Download the help document: after you have logged in to the site, a comprehensive help document about setting up your search strings is available for you to read on screen, or download as a pdf. This is handy to have by your side when setting up your strings.