Search Hints

Simplified Search Syntax

To find documents containing the exact word, enter the word only, then press Search.

In Simplified Search, spaces between words are interpreted as an OR operation. Entering the phrase “holiday pay” will find every document containing either the word holiday or the word pay.

Documents containing both words will score higher in the Search Results page.

To find documents that contain the exact phrase, enter the desired phrase within quotation marks: “holiday pay”

Simplified Search special operators include the plus + and the minus – signs:

• document region (Finds documents that contain either word)
• document +region (Finds documents that contain both words)
• document –region (Finds documents containing the first word but not the second word)
• –region (Finds documents that do not contain a word)

Proximity Searches are supported implicitly with Simplified Search Syntax. Words which are closer together will score higher than words which are further apart in documents.

Precise Search Syntax

To find documents with the exact word, enter only the word into the Search Dialogue box: i.e., Holiday, then press Search

To find documents containing an exact phrase, enter the phrase with no symbols: i.e., Holiday pay, then press Search

Precise Search utilizes Boolean Operator syntax. Boolean Operators are words, not symbols, and do not require the use of italics or quotation marks. Enter Boolean Operators as follows:

• document and region
• document or region
• document and not region
• not region

Removing the power of Boolean Operators

• rock “and” roll – will find “rock and roll”
• to be “or” “not” to be, will find “to be or not to be”

Proximity Searches use the Boolean Operator “near” to find words that appear in close proximity to one another. The default — simply using the word near — will look for the two words within a distance of five words. Following the word “near” with a number enclosed in parentheses allows users to customize that distance, as in the example below, which will lengthen the distance to 10 words.

• payroll near laws
• payroll near(10) laws

Parentheses

To create more complex and precise search queries, use parentheses to group keywords and operators. For example: 

• payroll and (laws or statutes)

The above search will return results that include the word “payroll” and either “laws” or “statutes”. 

Queries can be combined in various ways using parentheses. For example:

• (payroll near(5) laws) or (payroll near(5) statutes)

The above search will find either of the queries found inside the parentheses.

Wildcards

To conduct a search using the root of a word that might have several possible endings, use an asterisk. For example, to find all varieties of the root “comput”, search for “comput*”, this will render results including “compute”, “computer”, “computing”, “computed”, etc.