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Tips for Searching

At its simplest, a query can be just a word or a phrase.  With the help of the following tips you can change the focus of your query to get more precise results. Under the Basic search section you will get started with basic query language. The Advanced search section will get you acquainted with the full power of DFO's search engine.

Basic Search

Word

The smallest unit of text that can be searched for separately.  Type one or more key words. 

Example: regulations fisheries will give results containing either regulations or fisheries, or both.

Phrase (" ")

You can enclose two or more words in double quotation marks (" "), the search engine will search for these words in sequence. 

Example: "Recreational Fisheries Awards" will give results containing the phrase Recreational Fisheries Awards.

Multiple-character wildcard (*)

You can use the multiple-character wildcard (the asterisk, *) to find similar words. 

Example: fish* will retrieve documents containing the variations fisheries, fishes, fisherman, etc.

Single-character wildcard(?)

If you're searching for similar words or are unsure how a word is spelled, you can use the single-character wildcard, which is a question mark (?), for any character(s) in the text. 

Example:  fisherm?n results in a search for fisherman and fishermen.

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Operators (AND, OR, NOT)

You can use operators to modify the relationships between words in the search criteria. Use the AND (&), OR (|), and NOT (^) operators when entering search criteria on the criteria page.

Example: budget & policy will retrieve documents containing both words.

Example: awards | fisheries will retrieve documents containing either or both of the words.

Example: apple ^ computer will retrieve only documents containing the word apple without the word computer.

Advanced Search

Proximity ([ ])

Enclose the search terms in square brackets ([ ]) to indicate a proximity search. 

Example:  [legal "distribution agreement"]. In this case, it looks for items containing the word legal within a specified number of characters from the phrase distribution agreement.

For a more advanced proximity search, enclose the value for the distance and the search terms in double square brackets (for example, [[10 words] legal &"distribution agreement"] or [[10 w] legal &"distribution agreement"].) In this case, the search engine will look for items containing the word legal within 10 words of the phrase distribution agreement.

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Thesaurus (+)

You can include a plus (+) character at the end of a search term to use a thesaurus to find items that contain the search term or synonyms of the search term. 

Example: Disk+ will retrieve items that contain the word Disk, Disc, Diskette, or Floppy. 

Precedence ({ })

You can specify the operator precedence in your search criteria. 

Example: "Smith & {Bob|John}" would retrieve items that contain Bob Smith or John Smith.

Hyphenated character(-)

A hyphen (-) in a search term is treated as an optional punctuation character. This allows you to search for both hyphenated and non-hyphenated forms of the word. The non-hyphenated forms include spaces or anything that is interpreted as a punctuation character, with the exception of commas (,) and periods (.).

Example:  On-Line matches combinations of words, spaces, and punctuation, including the following: Online, On;Line, On Line, On-Line, and On&Line.