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Help using the
search facility
Here are some
helpful tips to make searching a little easier.
Common Search Operators
Additional Operators
Proximity Operators
Syntax Options (Sounds like)
Help with Keywords
Common Search Operators
AND
finds documents containing both words it joins.
(e.g., video AND surveillance will find all documents
containing video and surveillance.)
OR finds documents
containing either of the words it joins. (e.g.,
video OR surveillance will find documents containing
the word video or the word surveillance, but not
necessarily both.)
NOT finds documents
containing the word that precedes it but that
do not contain the word(s) that follows it. (e.g.,
video NOT surveillance would find all documents
with the word video, but would exclude any document
with the word surveillance even if the word video
was in the document.) NOTE: NOT can only
be used with the AND and OR operators.
, (comma) finds
documents containing at least one of the words
specified, ranking them using "the more, the better"
approach, so documents with the most occurences
of the words searched for are given the highest
rank.
Additional Operators
?
The question mark is a wildcard operator that
represents any one character. You can use a ?
to specify the first letter of a word. For example,
the query ?an would locate documents with the
following words, ran, pan, can,
and ban.
* The asterisk
is a wildcard operator that represents one
or more characters. For example,
the query corp* would locate corporate, corporation,
corporal, and corpulent. However, the
asterisk cannot be used to specify the first letter
or letters of a word.
' ' Use single
quotes to find stemmed variations of a word. For
example, the query edit' finds edited, editing,
and edition, among others.
"" Use double
quotes to find exact matches only. For example,
the query "edit" would only find documents with
the word edit in them. Especially helpful in finding
specific phrases. For example, a search for "Video
over IP" would only find documents with the phrase
"Video over IP" in just this order.
(
) Use parentheses to group words or phrases
together. For example, to select documents that
contain both the literal phrase "Video over IP"
and the literal word "MPEG-2," you can enter the
following: AND ("Video over IP", "MPEG-2").
<MANY>
counts the density of words, stemmed variations,
or phrases in a document, and produces a relevance-ranked
score for retrieved documents. The more occurrences
of a word, stem, or phrase proportional to the
amount of document text, the higher the score
of that document when retrieved. Because the MANY
modifier considers density in proportion to document
text, a longer document that contains more occurrences
of a word may score lower than a shorter document
that contains fewer occurrences. NOTE: This modifier
cannot be used with AND, OR, or the DATE
operators.
Proximity Operators
<NEAR>
finds documents containing words that are in the
same general area, but may or may not be adjacent.
For example, video <NEAR> multiplexer would
find all documents that contain the word multiplexer
within 3-5 words of video.
<NEAR/N>
This operator allows you to search for words within
a specified distance from each other. For example,
the query, commute <NEAR/10> multiplexer,
would locate all documents with these two words
within 10 words of each other. The N variable
can be any integer between 1 and 1,024.
<PHRASE>
finds documents containing phrases or words that
are adjacent to each other. For example, if you
are looking for a phrase "Fiber Optic Multiplexers"
your search could look like this: <PHRASE>
Fiber Optic Multiplexers and this would retreive
all documents with these three words in a row.
Proximity Operators include:
<NEAR> and <PHRASE>
described above and <SENTENCE> and
<PARAGRAPH>. These operators will
find documents in which the words specified are
in the same sentence or paragraph.
<ORDER>
allows you to search for documents that contain
the words in the same order they appear in the
query. For example, MPEG-2 <ORDER> decoder
would find documents with MPEG-2 decoder not decoder
MPEG-2.
<IN> finds
documents within a specified zone or field. For
example, different fields include date, author,
title, summary, or body text. To find the word
web or its variations in a title of a document
your search should look like this: web <IN>
title. To find multiple variations of more than
one word in a title use parentheses like this:
(web, security) <IN> title. To find web
security items in the title and summary use a
query like this: (web, security) <IN> (title,
summary).
<SOUNDEX>
expands the search to include the word you enter
and one or more words that "sound like," or whose
letter pattern is similar to the word specified.
This is helpful when you are not certain of the
exact spelling of a word.
<STEM>
expands your search to include the word you enter
and all its variations.
<THESAURUS>
finds documents with synonyms of the word you
specify. For example, the query <THESAURUS>
altitude retrieves documents that include "height,"
"elevation," and "altitude."
Most queries can be
written by entering the word or phrases you are
interested in. To ask for more specific results,
you could enter several words or phrases, seperated
by commas, that describe the subject more precisely,
such as: Devices, 510k.
This query would generate
documents that contain the terms "Devices," "510k,"
or both. Case does not matter in queries. Your
results list will display a ranked list of documents,
with the most relevant documents at the top. NOTE:
Use of parentheses around the k for 510k will
not work, parentheses
performs another function,
and by default is not treated as literal.
If you want to see documents
that refer to a series of words that occur in
a specific order, such as "Standards Guidance
document," you could enter: standards guidance
document. This query returns documents that contain
all of these words in the exact sequence you specified,
including stemmed variations of the search terms.
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