Using the Search Results Screen

Upon completion of a search, PLWeb Turbo displays the Search Results Screen. The contents of this screen always represent the most recently executed search.

The Hitlist

When executing a search, PLWeb Turbo assembles the records that satisfy your query, ranks them in order of relevance to the query and displays a brief summary for each of the most relevant records. This collection of summaries is called the Hitlist. Any term within a record that satisfies the conditions of your search query, thereby causing the record to be retrieved, is referred to as a hit or hit word. A record containing a hit word is known as a hit record.

You can use the Hitlist to analyze the success of your search, viewing the summaries to gauge whether the retrieved records might contain the kind of information you are seeking.

Note: If you execute a search that no records in the current database(s) satisfy, the Hitlist will contain the message "Search Produced Zero Hits."

The Relevance Ranking Score

Hitlist summaries are ranked and scored in order of relevance to your search query.

You should use relevance ranking scores to determine which retrieved records are suitable for review. If the scores show a sharp decline in relevance at any point, you probably would not want to look at records beyond the drop-off; the less relevant records might contain relatively few hits.

If the slope of the scores is mostly level, it signals only a small distinction in relevance between retrieved records. In this case, you may want to refine your search query.

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