How
to Search
Sometimes a simple search is not descriptive enough
to produce the desired results. In some cases, the query
may not locate any matching documents. In others the
results list may be too large or too short, or the documents
in the results list may not contain relevant information.
In these instances, you may need to modify your search
in order to get a better results list. Using the following
guide, you can better define your terms and communicate
a more precise request to the search engine.
Refining
Searches
-
You
can use AND between the terms you specify to force
the engine to locate only the documents that contain
ALL of your terms, thereby eliminating irrelevant
documents.
- A search for Author AND Topic AND Country locates
pages that contain All three keywords.
- Broadening Searches Use OR between several terms
to have the search engine look for the occurrence
of either term.
- A search for Family OR Relatives OR Parents will
locate at least one of the three terms specified.
- Excluding Terms From Searches Use NOT to refine
a term when a word has more than one meaning.
- A search for Bank NOT River will likely eliminate
pages that don't relate to Bank as the place where
you deposit your money.
- Proximity Searching Use <NEAR> to locate terms
appearing close to each other within a given document,
for example, within a sentence or a paragraph.
- A search for Publishing <NEAR> Images will
look for these terms in close proximity to one another.
