Lesson 7: Wrapping up the Course
Congratulations! You have completed Introduction to Dialog Basics for the Business Professional. Here are a few tips to continue your Dialog education.
We hope that you have enjoyed working through the course in your own time. Remember that the practice that you do will reinforce your learning in the course.
Review of the Commands and Techniques
In this course, you have learned how to use the databases selection tool, called DIALINDEX, to choose databases, the basic Dialog commands, how to identify key terms, and choose synonyms.
In addition, you have learned to truncate, use proximity connectors and logical operators. Print this page (or download a PDF version) so that you have a list of the commands and techniques you learned all on one page:
Basic Commands
| Command | Example | When to Use It |
|---|---|---|
| BEGIN B | begin 9 b 9 b 9,16 current b businessnews |
Use BEGIN
with a file number to specify the database(s) to be searched. Use CURRENT to restrict a search to the current year plus previous year in the database specified. |
| EXPAND E | expand co=klm e jn=business management |
Use EXPAND to verify the spelling of terms and to view similar entries. |
| SELECT S | select telecommut? s telecommut? s merg? or acqui? s s1 and s2 |
Use SELECT to create a set of records (e.g., s1) that contains the specified terms. |
![]() TYPE T | type s1/free/1-3 t s2/short/1 t s3/medium/1,2 |
Use the DISPLAY Button to view records or use TYPE to display results in a specified format. |
| DISPLAY SETS | display sets ds |
Use DISPLAY SETS to display a list of all sets created since the last BEGIN command. |
![]() LOGOFF | logoff | Click the LOGOFF button to end the search and disconnect from Dialog or enter LOGOFF in the command box. |
Other Dialog Techniques
| Technique | Examples |
|---|---|
| Using truncation | s communicat? |
| Using proximity connectors | s fiber?(n)optic? s real(w)estate s share?(5n)market? s solar(s)heat? |
| Using logical operators | s japan? and export? s physician? or doctor? |
Go to the next page.

