Library Guides Index Fields are the different areas of a record contained in a database. Searching in databases or on the Internet will be much more effective and save you time if the term being searched is specified as being in a particular section of the record. Field searching can be performed in a limited way on the Internet. AltaVista , as one of the larger search engines, allows specific words to be searched in the URL of a page. Some of the more commonly found parts are given here.
Many search engines have 'default' settings for what fields are searched.
Default search settings commonly include title, author, abstract and subject fields. Where Searched Author AU Author of the article, use last name only unless help screen notes otherwise. This does not retrieve material written about an author. This usually refers to either the title of the entire book, or an article title contained in a journal. This searches only the title of a journal, not a specific article title.