A search request consists of a group of words or phrases linked by connectors such as and and or that indicate the relationship between them. Examples:
|
Both words must be present |
pear |
Either word can be present |
pear |
Apple must occur within 5 words of pear |
w/5 pear |
Apple must not occur within 5 words of pear |
pear |
Only apple must be present |
If you use more than one connector, you should use parentheses to indicate precisely what you want to search for. For example, apple and pear or orange juice could mean (apple and pear) or orange, or it could mean apple and (pear or orange).
Noise words, such as if and the, are ignored in searches.
Search terms may include the following special characters:
? |
Matches any single character. Example: appl? matches apply or apple. |
* |
Matches any number of characters. Example: appl* matches application |
~ |
Stemming. Example: apply~ matches apply, applies, applied. |
% |
Fuzzy search. Example: ba%nana matches banana, bananna. |
# |
Phonic search. Example: #smith matches smith, smythe. |
& |
Synonym search. Example: fast& matches quick. |
~~ |
Numeric range. Example: 12~~24 matches 18. |
You do not need to use any special punctuation or commands to search for a phrase. Simply enter the phrase the way it ordinarily appears. You can use a phrase anywhere in a search request. Example:
apple w/5 fruit salad
If a phrase contains a noise word, a search will skip over the noise word when searching for it. For example, a search for statue of liberty would retrieve any document containing the word statue, any intervening word, and the word liberty.
Punctuation inside of a search word is treated as a space. Thus, can't would be treated as a phrase consisting of two words: can and t. 1843(c)(8)(ii) would become 1843 c 8 ii (four words).
A search word can contain the wildcard characters * and ?. A ? in a word matches any single character, and a * matches any number of characters. The wildcard characters can be in any position in a word. For example:
appl* would match apple, application, etc.
*cipl* would match principle, participle, etc.
appl? would match apply and apple but not apples.
ap*ed would match applied, approved, etc.
Use of the * wildcard character near the beginning of a word will slow searches somewhat.
Fuzzy searching will find a word even if it is misspelled. For example, a fuzzy search for apple will find appple:
You can add fuzziness by selectively using the % character. The number of % characters you add determines the number of differences the search will ignore when searching for a word. The position of the % characters determines how many letters at the start of the word have to match exactly. Examples:
ba%nana
b%%anana
Phonic searching looks for a word that sounds like the word you are searching for and begins with the same letter. For example, a phonic search for Smith will also find Smithe and Smythe.
To ask to search for a word phonically, put a # in front of the word in your search request. Examples: #smith, #johnson
Stemming extends a search to cover grammatical variations on a word. For example, a search for fish would also find fishing. A search for applied would also find applying, applies, and apply:
If you want to USE stemming, add a ~ at the end of words that you want stemmed in a search. Example: apply~
Use the AND connector in a search request to connect two expressions, both of which must be found in any document retrieved. For example:
apple pie and poached pear would retrieve any document that contained both phrases.
(apple or banana) and (pear w/5 grape) would retrieve any document that (1) contained either apple OR banana, AND (2) contained pear within 5 words of grape.
Use the OR connector in a search request to connect two expressions, at least one of which must be found in any document retrieved. For example, apple pie or poached pear would retrieve any document that contained apple pie, poached pear, or both.
Use the W/N connector in a search request to specify that one word or phrase must occur within N words of the other. For example, apple w/5 pear would retrieve any document that contained apple within 5 words of pear. The following are examples of search requests using W/N:
(apple or pear) w/5 banana
(apple w/5 banana) w/10 pear
(apple and banana) w/10 pear
Some types of complex expressions using the W/N connector will produce ambiguous results and should not be used. The following are examples of ambiguous search requests:
(apple and banana) w/10 (pear and grape)
(apple w/10 banana) w/10 (pear and grape)
In general, at least one of the two expressions connected by W/N must be a single word or phrase or a group of words and phrases connected by OR. Example:
(apple and banana) w/10 (pear or grape)
(apple and banana) w/10 orange tree
Use NOT in front of any search expression to reverse its meaning. This allows you to exclude documents from a search. Example:
apple sauce and not pear
NOT standing alone can be the start of a search request. For example, not pear would retrieve all documents that did not contain pear.
If NOT is not the first connector in a request, you need to use either AND or OR with NOT:
apple or not pear
not (apple w/5 pear)
The NOT W/ ("not within") operator allows you to search for a word or phrase not in association with another word or phrase. Example:
apple not w/20 pear
Unlike the W/ operator, NOT W/ is not symmetrical. That is, apple not w/20 pear is not the same as pear not w/20 apple. In the apple not w/20 pear request, the search for apple excludes cases where apple is too close to pear. In the pear not w/20 apple request, the search for pear excludes cases where pear is too close to apple.
A numeric range search is a search for any numbers that fall within a range. To add a numeric range component to a search request, enter the upper and lower bounds of the search separated by ~~ like this:
apple w/5 12~~17
This request would find any document containing apple within 5 words of a number between 12 and 17.
Numeric range searches only work with positive integers. A numeric range search includes the upper and lower bounds (so 12 and 17 would be retrieved in the above example).
Omit 's from search phrases.