Tagging Tips
The great thing about PennTags is that you can use any keywords you want to describe your posts; you tailor them to your own needs! You can use as many or as few as you want.
The most important thing to remember is that every time you hit the space bar, you're creating a new tag. So use the underscore (_) to make multi-word tags, e.g., political_science.
In case you're just getting started and want some advice, here are some tips for tagging that we've found useful:
Use tags that make sense to you.
Create tags that are concise and meaningful, as well as easy to remember and find. Ask yourself:
will I still remember this tag when I next work on this project?
Use simple tags.
When using tags to describe a complex topic, break the topic down into several smaller concepts.
Don't try to represent everything in one tag. For example, tag a resource with philadelphia
mayoral elections (3 separate tags) instead of philadelphia_mayoral_elections (1 tag).
If you really want to use multi-word tags, keep them short. Remember: Dr._Strangelove is
a lot easier to manage than Dr._Stranglove,_Or:_How_I_Learned_to_Stop_Worrying_and_Love_the_Bomb.
Be consistent with yourself and others.
When you're adding new posts, you'll see your recently-used tags displayed in the posting box. That
way, you can easily remember which tags you've used in the past and can choose to use them again.
If you see that someone else is using a tag that matches your interest, use that tag when you're
adding similar resources. This option is one of many that makes PennTags a social bookmarking tool.
Don't overlap tags.
This tip goes along with being simple and consistent. If you're tagging something cinema, don't
also tag it movies. Picking one term will cut down on effort and confusion.
Use plural nouns.
While you can always create your own tags, in the world of tagging, people usually use plural nouns.
So, when tagging an article about Spiderman, consider using superheroes instead of superhero.
More Tagging Tips
All right, we're librarians. We can't resist pointing out that we've organized a lot of information over the
past few thousand years, so we have opinions about this kind of thing. We've found that people often search
for items based on the following categories, so it makes sense to tag your posts with some of the following
criteria. Of course, only use these if they're relevant to your source.
Author or creator
Who made it? The government? Your friend?
Format
Sometimes, you only remember that a resource was a book, so make a note of the format. Try adding as a tag:
movies, books, articles, blogs, search_engines, statistics,
case_studies, etc.
Location of coverage
This is one place that you might want to break the "no overlap" rule. If you tag a newspaper from Philadelphia,
you might someday want to find all of your Pennsylvania newspapers, so overlapping coverage may make sense here.
Try philadelphia pennsylvania united_states university_city.
Date of coverage
We'll capture the date you've added the post, but if it matters that the source is 16th century, make a note of
it. Try historical 17th_century 1676, etc.
Topic
This tip is pretty obvious, but try to think of how you might think to search for this resource in the future,
and how others might think to search for it.
Relevance to you
Is this resource for a class? Which class? Do you want to show this to your Uncle? How would he look for it?