Strange results in ESVS construct search

[Bret Hicks]

I was watching an old podcast today on construct searches. I replicated the search done by Dr. J to find all occurrences of god or lord within 5 words of any form of lov*, with the intervening word being only 'the', and not including "you."

 

When I do the search, I get 20 hits in 19 verses. Both the search and results are seen in the first screen shot I have attached:

 

 

 

file://localhost/Users/Bret/Desktop/Screen%20shot%202012-02-15%20at%205.35.56%20PM.png

 

The strange thing is when Dr. J does the exact same search in the ESVS, he gets 35 hits in 34 verses - and his is correct! (A screenshot showing his results in the podcast are in the second screenshot I am attaching.) Why am I not getting all of the verses? As far as I can tell, my settings, versions, and search are identical to his. So why the difference?

 

 

 

file://localhost/Users/Bret/Desktop/Screen%20shot%202012-02-15%20at%205.35.56%20PM%20(2).png

 

In Christ,

 

 

Bret Hicks

[Joel Brown]

Hi, Brett. I'm having trouble seeing your screenshots, can you reference which podcast Dr. J discusses this?

[Bret Hicks]

I tried to attach them. Here they are again:

 

 

 

 

And the podcast was Episode 19 "Construct searches" from January 2010.

 

And by the way, when I tried the next example he used, I again received VASTLY different results on the identical search. In that case, mine seemed to be more correct (

[David Lang]

Bret, the difference in results is due to the fact that Dr. J was using Accordance 8 in that podcast rather than Accordance 9. The introduction of syntax searching in Accordance 9 required us to make a major change in the logic of the Construct window.

 

Prior to Accordance 9, adjacent columns in the Construct window represented adjacent words, unless you added a WITHIN above the column to specify that they could be further apart. Thus, the third column in Dr. J's construct excluded the word "you" from appearing immediately after the main part of the construction.

 

In Accordance 9, adjacent columns no longer get interpreted as adjacent words. To specify that two columns are adjacent, you must now add a WITHIN 1 Word above the two columns.

 

Put another way, it used to be that you needed a WITHIN to specify non-adjacent columns, now you need a WITHIN to specify adjacent columns.

 

Consequently, the third column now excludes the word "you" from appearing anywhere after the main part of the construction, eliminating far more hits than when Dr. J did this podcast.

 

You should be able to get similar results to Dr. J by adding WITHIN 1 Word above the second and third columns. Unfortunately, there seems to be a bug which fails to exclude Deut. 7:8 and 23:5. We'll have to look into that.

 

Sorry for the confusion. We were loath to make such a major change, but concluded that it was necessary for the syntax searching.

[Bret Hicks]

David,

 

Thanks. That explains it. I did not care about the particular searches themselves, but the differing results was bothersome. Perhaps Dr. J. could update the podcast? Or was this information distributed some other way? For those of us newer to Accordance our main way of learning how to use the tool (other than just playing around) are things like the podcast and your blog. So when version 9 does something different, it leaves us at a lost.

 

Again, thanks for the help, and for a great Bible study software package.

 

 

In Christ,

 

 

Bret Hicks