Search Tips
The following section will guide you through examples on searching tips for the LAD collection.
Search terms. Use the text field to search single words or phrases in study titles and descriptions.
Tip: You can explore the Latin American countries to see the topic highlights information by country. This may help you with ideas to search a variety of terms that you may be interested in.
Examples using "or" / "and" (Compound terms)
| Keyword(s) in "Search" * | Search results |
| Elections | All studies from the selected country containing the word "elections" in the description of the study. |
| Elections or economy | All studies from the selected country containing either "elections" or "economy" in the description of the study. |
| Elections and economy | All studies from the selected country containing either "elections" or "economy" in the description of the study. |
| Elections and economy and president | All studies from the selected country containing "elections" and "economy" and "president" in the description of the study. |
Examples using parentheses
| Keyword(s) in "Search" | Search results |
| (Elections and economy) or (Elections and president) | All studies from the selected country containing either "elections" and "economy" or "elections" and "president" in the description of the study. |
| Elections and (Economy or president) | Same. |
| (Elections or economy) and president | Same. |
| (Elections or economy) or president | All studies from the selected country containing "elections" and "economy" in the description of the study. |
Examples using a wildcard symbol (%)
You can use the wildcard when you wish to search on different forms of the same word without having to specify each form in the "Search" field.
| Keyword(s) in "Search" | Search results |
| Elect% | All studies from the selected country containing "election," "elections," "electoral," "elected." |
Some keywords present problems in wildcard searching. If you are doing a search on international trade agreements, you might be inclined to search on "import%" to find questions containing "import," "imports," "imported," or "importing," but such a search will also retrieve thousands of questions containing "important" or "importance." In a case like this, it is better to enter all the different forms of your keyword separately. |
|
* Please note that you need to download and read the questionnaire to find out the actual question wording related to the keyword you are using for your search. The catalog search focuses only in the description of every study available for the Latin American databank but not in actual question wording as it appears in the original questionnaire. The language of the questionnaire from the LAD collection may vary (e.g. English, Spanish or Portuguese), however, when conducting a search be sure to use the English alphabet only. Example: "Centro De Estudios Públicos (CEP)" should be changed to "Centro De Estudios Publicos (CEP)."
Date range. Enter the target date range by using the standard mm/dd/yyyy format. If you are looking for a specific date enter that date into both boxes. The Roper Center houses surveys from Latin America since the 1950s.
Country selection. You can conduct a search country by country. Select the country of your interest.
Organization. When searching for a particular survey organization, you may want to run the search twice. Once with the survey organization entered in the "Organization" field and a second search with the survey organization entered in the "Search" keyword field. Example: "USA Today/CNN" in the "Organization" field produces 2 datasets. "USA Today/CNN" entered in the "Search" keyword field produces 504 datasets.
Search Results
Contents. Search results include the study number, title, survey firm, sponsor (if applicable), and methodological information (field dates, sample, sample size and notes). For many studies acquired by the Center since 1980, you will find summary descriptions of the major topics covered by the studies, as well as the approximate number of variables included.
Sort Order. The results are sorted by field dates in descending order, so that the most recent data appear first.
Ordering Information
Contact. Please contact Data Services staff for further information about studies found in the catalog. They will be happy to answer your questions and help guide you in the acquisition of the Center's survey data files. Data Services can be contacted by email at DataServices-RoperCenter.uconn.edu.
