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Help
Proactive Disclosure
Using Search
| Word searching | Phrase searching | Truncation | Boolean operators |
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At its simplest, a query can be just a word or a phrase. But with the tips on this page, you can change the focus of your query to give you more precise results. These tips will get you started with basic query language and acquaint you with the power of the search engine.
Word searching
Type one or more key words separated by the operator AND (see below for more information on the use of Boolean operators).
Search:
The above example will give a list of documents containing both airport and security. The documents containing the most instances of the key words will appear at the top of the search results list.
Phrase searching
Type key words together to ensure that the search results contain only perfect matches (the same words in the same order).
Search:
The above example will give results containing the phrase tips for travellers.
Put quotation marks around keywords if your query contains one of the Boolean operators and you want Index Server to take them literally.
Search:
The above example will give results containing the phrase Vice-President and Chief Operation Officer.
Truncation
Replace the ending of a key word with an asterisk (*) as a wild card character to retrieve documents containing variant root word endings.
Search:
The above example will retrieve documents containing the variations bag, bags, baggage, etc.
Boolean operators
Are used to combine key words into one search.
| Operator | Description | Examples |
|---|---|---|
AND |
Adds mandatory criteria to the search. Finds documents that have all of the specified words. | Antarctica AND mountain climb Finds only documents containing both Antarctica and mountain climb plus all the stemmed variants, such as mountain climbing. |
NOT |
Finds
documents that do not contain a specific word or phrase.
Note: You can use NOT to modify the OR or the AND operator. |
surf
AND NOT beach Finds documents containing the word surf but not the word beach. |
OR |
Adds optional criteria to the search. Finds any document that contains at least one of the search values. | apples
OR oranges Finds documents containing either apples or oranges. |
| Important Notices |