Refining your Search

So far, we have considered simple searches on only one index.

However, this can produce long lists of returns, as you may have found if you asked for all those called Ioannes contained in PBE I (there are 523 Ioannes and 7 Ioanikios), all the 'Anonymus' persons (there are 744) or sought out who was connected to Constantinople. More usually, there are limitations or refinements that historians wish to place on their searches to make the results more manageable and meaningful. The means by which this is achieved in PBE I is the 'Refining your search' option. Because of the different ways in which they operate, it is best to separate the two different classes of 'search refinement': limitations by date (which makes use of the floruits associated with individuals in PBE I); and limitations by the addition of one or more other index value. These two different limitations to be placed on a search will be considered now in turn.


1.    Limitation additionally by floruit

It is perhaps easiest to explain this by working through an example. Let us take the career-title 'strategos'. Before we attempt any query, we know that a search under 'strategos' will produce a long cumbersome list that is not very helpful historically. Historians would more normally be interested in strategoi connected with a particular period. So, let us say that we wish to limit our search for strategoi to those strategoi connected to the period 780-840. What we are attempting to do therefore is to limit the search under the career-title 'strategos' by limiting the search results by the addition of earliest and latest dates.

From the Dataset Index Home Page, click on the index Career Title. Work through the system to select 'strategos'. Then when the system has produced the list, click in the little marker box to the right of the word 'strategos'. Then go to the purple banner-header, to the right, where there is a little drop-down menu that says: 'Go to:'. Let the menu drop down and click on 'Refining your search'. After a moment the screen will clear and reload, now with one small tick-box on the left of the purple banner-header labelled 'Strategos'. Tick the tick box [this is how the selections are activated]. Then on the right-hand side of the purple banner-header, use the floruit limitations of 'earliest' and 'latest' to add in the desired limits in time, in this case: L VIII (for 780) and M IX (for 840). Then use the 'and' selection. More complex combinations can be built up here, by using double combinations. After a moment's processing time, the results will appear in the pink, left-hand area of the screen. The PBE I individuals then presented can be accessed in the usual way, with the articles appearing on the right hand side of the screen after the 'name&number' combination has been clicked. If there are no matches for the search requested, an 'error' message to that effect will appear centre screen. Such searches may be repeated any number of times. However, users are advised to 'clear' the 'Search Refinement' screen between searches to prevent any contamination from one search to another.

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2.     Limitation additionally by the addition of another index

It is perhaps again easiest to explain this by working through an example. Let us take the career-title 'strategos'. Before we attempt any query, we know that a search under 'strategos' will produce a long cumbersome list that is not very helpful historically. Historians would more normally be interested in strategoi connected with a particular place or theme. So, let us say that we wish to limit our search for strategoi to those strategoi connected to the location 'Anatolikoi' (the theme of Anatolia). What we are attempting to do therefore is to limit the search under the career-title 'strategos' by concatenating the additional parameter 'location' with the value 'Anatolikoi'. That is the theory; what is the practice?

From the Dataset Index Home Page, click on the index Career Title. Work through the system to select 'strategos'. Then when the system has produced the list, click in the little marker box to the right of the word 'strategos'. Then go to the purple banner-header, to the right, where there is a little drop-down menu that says: 'Go to:'. Let the menu drop down and click on 'location'. This will take you to the location index and indeed is exactly the same as if you had 'clicked' on the Locations index on the Dataset Index Home Page. Work through the process here and select 'Anatolikoi'. Then return to the purple banner-header, drop down the menu again and click on 'Refining your Search'. After a moment the screen will clear and reload, now with two small tick-boxes on the left of the purple banner-header labelled 'Strategos' and 'Anatolikoi'. Tick both the tick boxes [this is how the selections are activated] and then click on either of the Boolean choices 'and' or 'or'. After a moment's processing time, the results will appear in the left-hand, pink index area. The PBE I individuals then presented can be accessed in the usual way, with the articles appearing on the right hand side of the screen after the 'name&number' combination has been clicked. If there are no matches for the search requested, an 'error' message to that effect will appear centre screen. Such searches may be repeated any number of times. However, users are advised to 'clear' the 'Search Refinement' screen between searches to prevent any contamination from one search to another.

Most usually, users will find that a concatenation of more than three of the different indexes will preclude any positive result. The most frequent combination searches will be two indexes with a time limitation placed upon it - in effect, combining the operations explained above. To do this, follow the instructions for the example of combining 'strategos' and 'Anatolikoi' above, until the point where both are on the 'Refinement' screen and the tick-boxes are ticked. Then on the right-hand side of the purple banner-header, use the floruit limitations of 'earliest' and 'latest' to add in the desired limits in time. Then use the 'and' selection. More complex combinations can be built up as well. You can see some samples of these by looking at the examples of searches provided below.

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Examples

The following links will take you to pages which provide in depth, step-by-step examples which you may like to work through.

  1. Introduction to basic and complex searches -- as shown in the accompanying booklet. Click here to view this.
  2. Performing a search according to floruit period. Click here to see a fully illustrated example of this.
  3. Performing a search according to common attributes - finding a list of names that share two or three common attributes, for example. Click here to see a fully illustrated example of this.

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