Information search tactics

Citation: Marcia J. Bates (1979) Information search tactics. Journal of the American Society for Information Science (RSS)
Internet Archive Scholar (search for fulltext): Information search tactics
Download: http://gseis.ucla.edu/faculty/bates/articles/Information%20Search%20Tactics.html
Tagged: information seeking behavior (RSS), information retrieval (RSS), HCIR (RSS)

Summary

This is a landmark paper which presents and names 29 tactics used in information search, intended as a facilitation and teaching model. Table 1 provides a succinct summary of the tactics, which are categorized into four types: monitoring tactics (to keep on track), file structure tactics (for following the file structure), search formulation tactics (to help design and reformulate queries), and term tactics (to help improve specific terms in the query).

Monitoring Tactics

• Check
• Weigh (cost-benefit)
• Pattern (make oneself aware of the pattern of the search & redesign it as needed)
• Correct (spelling, factual errors, etc)
• Record (keep track of the path followed and useful paths not followed or not completed)

File Structure Tactics

• Bibble (to look for a bibliography or similar results from someone else)
• Select (to break queries into subproblems)
• Survey (to review the available options)
• Cut (to choose the path that eliminates the largest part of the search domain)
• Stretch (to use a source beyond its intended purpose)
• Scaffold (to design an indirect route)
• Cleave (binary searching)

Search Formulation Tactics

• Specify
• Exhaust
• Reduce
• Parallel
• Pinpoint
• Block

Term Tactics

• Super (use a broader, superordinate term)
• Sub (use a more specific, subordinate term)
• Relate (move sideways hierarchially)
• Neighbor (look at neighboring terms -- i.e. nearby alphabetically or by subject similarity)
• Trace (look at info already found to improve search terms)
• Vary (alter the terms)
• Fix (use prefixes, suffixes, infixes)
• Rearrange (change the order of the terms)
• Contrary (use opposite)
• Respell
• Respace

See also

Bates wrote a related paper on Idea tactics

Theoretical and Practical Relevance

Winner: "Best JASIS Paper of the Year Award," 1980.

The material presented continues to have relevance for human information search techniques. It is a classic of HCIR literature.