Material Search Tips

Searching for a material using the simple search form in the header is the same as using the Keywords field in the Material Advanced Search form and checking “any words.”
Entering a search term in this field will search for the entered word(s) in the following Material Detail fields: Title, URL, Description, Keywords, Author Name, and Author Organization.
- If “any words” is selected, MERLOT will search for any one of the words entered in the above fields.
- If “all words” is selected, MERLOT will return materials in which all of the words entered are found in any of the above fields, regardless of the order of the words.
- If “exact phrase” is selected, MERLOT will search for the all of the words entered, in the exact order they were entered, in the above fields. Placing the search term inside quotation marks will also search for an exact match.
If multiple words are entered in any of the other advanced search fields, MERLOT will search that particular field for ANY of the words entered.
The greater the number of search terms entered, the greater the number of relevant results.
Sorting your search results

Unless otherwise specified, the resulting list of materials will always be sorted by Relevance when search terms have been provided, and by Overall Rating when there are no search terms provided.
The resulting list can then be resorted by Relevance, Overall Rating, Title, Author, Material Type, Date Added to MERLOT, or Date Modified in MERLOT.

When searching for materials using any of the advanced search fields other than Keywords, keep in mind that some materials may not have all of the data represented by those fields. The following screenshot shows which data are found in all materials, and which are not.