Fill in the Blanks Linear SearchingOnline version Fill in the blanks for linear searching by Steven Rich 1 beginning position compares match first end criteria next found Linear search looks for an item ( called the search within a data list . It starts at the of the list and the search criteria with the item in the list If there is no match , then the item in the list is compared with the search criteria . This continues until a is found or the of the list is reached . Linear search returns either the index / of the item ( search criteria ) or that the item is not in this list .