Students often use facets when searching for images and videos without knowing they are doing so. Using facets allows you to narrow your search results.

Female student looking at a computer

Faceted Search

Faceted search in a web context (also known as faceted navigation) is a technique that allows users to narrow down search results by applying multiple filters based on faceted classification of the items. A faceted classification system groups information based on numerous dimensions (called facets), enabling the classifications to be accessed and ordered in multiple ways rather than a single, pre-determined order. Facets will usually appear in a list on the left- or right-hand side of a website. (Modern online library catalogues are increasingly adopting faceted search interfaces.)
Source: “Faceted Search,” Wikipedia

For example, according to the chosen research theme, we could only focus on current events. In the following example, we did a simple search using the keyword deforestation and we obtained 30,700,000 results.

Image of a search browser with the keyword deforestation showing 30,700,000 results.

If we click on News (faceted search), we filter the results and obtain  2,450,000 results. It's too many results and not necessarily related to my research topic. 


Consequently, it is important to add the predetermined keywords (module 3 Plan) related to your research topic and use boolean operators to refine your search. 


In this example, we obtained two results in just a few clicks! It is less than when we started and the results are more precise. But, we still need to verify if it's what we are looking for. We could use other keywords, look for different regions, etc. 

There are many faceted searches we can use to refine our research.



Last modified: Tuesday, 31 May 2022, 9:18 AM