Help
Search Tips
To search for words in Supreme Court judgments, you must use the search engine provided on the judgments page.
To search Supreme Court of Canada Case Information, please consult
the section entitled Cases.
The information below introduces how to write queries using Verity search features, and covers:
How to Write Basic Queries
Finding Words
Most queries can be written by entering the words and phrases you're interested in. If you want to see documents about McLachlin, you can start with a single-word query, such as:
- mclachlin
In this case, your query finds all the documents that include the name "McLachlin."
To ask for more specific results, you could enter several words or phrases,
separated by commas, that describe your subject more precisely, such as:
- mclachlin, speech
In this case, your query finds documents that contain "McLachlin," or "speech." The most relevant documents will appear at the top of the results list.
Finding Phrases
To see documents that refer to a series of words that occur in a specific order, such as "notices to the profession" or "publication ban ," enter the whole phrase:
- notices to the profession
- publication ban
The above queries will return only documents that contain all of these words in the exact sequence you specified, including stemmed variations of the search terms.
How to Refine Queries Using Verity Operators
You can make your queries more specific by combining the words you used for basic queries with operators. Operators are special words that are used to indicate logical relationships between the descriptive terms that make up your query.
Basic Operators
Here are basic operators that you can specify as part of queries.
Operator |
Description |
|---|---|
| AND | Finds documents that contain all of the terms you specify. Ex: l'heureux-dubé and appointment |
| OR | Finds documents that show evidence of at least one of your terms. Ex: biography or dickson |
| NOT | Finds documents containing the term(s) preceding it and excludes documents containing the term(s) that follows it. Ex: statistics not bulletin |
| <NEAR> <NEAR/n> |
Finds documents containing specified search terms, where the closer the search terms are within a document, the higher the document's score. Ex: camera <near> courtEx: individual rights <near/10> charter |
| <SENTENCE> | Finds documents that include all of the terms you specify within the same sentence. Ex: role <sentence> judge |
| , (comma) |
Finds documents containing at least one of the words specified, ranking them using "the more, the better" approach, so documents with the most evidence of the words searched for are given the highest rank. Ex: appeal, appellate, supreme, court |
NOTE: AND, OR, and NOT are treated as operators by default, and do not require brackets. If you want to use them as literal words, place them in double quotes. All other operators must be placed within brackets.
More About Operators
Here are some additional operators that you can specify as part of queries.
Operator |
Description |
|---|---|
| ? | Wildcard operator that represents any one character. You can use a ? to specify the first letter of a word. Ex: mari?uana |
| * | Wildcard operator that represents one or more characters.You cannot use a * to specify the first letter of a word. Ex: financ* (finds finance, finances, financial, finacier,etc) |
| Term <IN>Title ======= Title <CONTAINS> Term |
Find documents by title Ex. title <contains> building |
| " " (double quotes) |
Placing a word in double quotation marks finds exact matches only, excluding stemmed variations of the word. Ex: "paragraph 25(1)(e)" (does not find "paragraph", "25(1)", etc.) |
Tips to Remember
Here are some general rules to remember when entering your term(s).
Writing Rules |
Description |
|---|---|
| Upper or Lower Case | A word entered completely in upper or lower case will force the system to match words in upper case, lower case, or mixed case unless entered in quotes. Ex: l'heureux-dubé |
| Mixed Case | Words in mixed case will force the search engine to find case-sensitive matches Ex: EUR-Lex or CUBs |
| Stemmed variations | Stemmed variations of your term will automatically be searched by the search engine unless entered in quotes. Ex: address the judge(Finds: address the judge; addressing the judges, etc) |
| French Accents | Must be entered to find exact match. Ex: bibliothèque or lois et règlements |
| Hyphens | Either type it in or leave a space. Ex: cross-examination |
| Apostrophes | Either type it in or leave a space. Ex: nova scotia barristers' society |
| Ampersand & | Replace character with operator. Ex: law <near> constitution(Finds law & constitution) |
| Acronyms & Periods | Do not type the period if it is at the end of the word. Ex: CBA or CIDA or NGOEx: s.c.r (Finds S.C.R.) |
| Colons : | Either type it in or leave a space. Ex: common law: united kingdom |
| Forward Slash / | Searchable character. Ex: SOR/83-74 |
| Backslash \ comma , | Insert a backslash before the comma to make it searchable. Ex: april 8\, 1875 (Finds April 8, 1875) |
| Operator Words: AND OR NOT | Enclose these words in quotes if you want the search engine to find them. Ex: growth "and" developmentEx: him "or" her |
| Alpha-numberic character | Numbers are searchable. Ex: 110-00SC |
