Tips for Searching

At its simplest, a query or search term can be just a word or a phrase. But with the tips on this page, you can expand the focus of your search to give you more complete results. 

• Look for words with the same prefix. For example, in the search form, type key* to find key, keying, keyhole, keyboard, and so on.

• Search for all forms of a word. For example, in the form, type sink** to find sink, sinking, sank, and sunk.

• Search with the keyword NEAR, rather than AND, for words close to each other. For example, both of these queries, system and manager and system near manager, look for the words system and manager on the same page. But with NEAR, the returned pages are ranked in order of proximity: The closer together the words are, the higher the rank of that page.

• Refine your queries with the AND NOT keywords to exclude certain text from your search. For example, if you want to find all instances of surfing but not the Net, write the following query:

  surfing AND NOT the Net

• Add the OR keyword to find all instances of either one word or another, for example:

  Abbott OR Costello

  This query finds all pages that mention Abbott or Costello or both.

• Put quotation marks around keywords if you want the search engine to take them literally. For instance, if you type the following query:
  
  "system near manager"

  the search engine will literally look for the complete phrase system near manager. But if you type the same query without the quotation marks:
  
  system near manager

  the search engine searches all documents for the words system and manager (as described above).

(c) 2000 Physician's Weekly