Tips for More Effective Searches

Tip 1 - Start with a Narrow Search

Adding a little focus to your initial query can drastically reduce the number of unwanted results. For example, if you are looking for news on the Space Shuttle Atlantis, entering Atlantis would return results about a lost city, a casino, and the Space Shuttle Atlantis. Instead, entering Shuttle Atlantis returns the items you want about the spacecraft Atlantis. One extra search word can make a world of difference in your results.

Instead of...

Try...

Electronics

Consumer Electronics

Cars

Hybrid cars

Elections

Election Results

Economy

Economic Forecast

Tip 2: - Searching for Exact Names and Places

Surrounding a name or phrase with quotation marks returns search results containing that exact phrase, in the order that the words appear in the query. This is the quickest and easiest way to find exactly what you want.

If you are looking for stories concerning Prime Minister Brown, entering prime minister and brown not only returns stories about Prime Minister Brown, but also about United Kingdom politics in general, as well as religious ministers and brown bears.

Entering "Prime Minister Brown” will focus your search to only the Prime Minister of the U.K., Gordon Brown.

To be even more sure that you receive all the stories about the Prime Minister, try:

"Prime Minister Gordon Brown" OR "James Gordon Brown" OR "Right Honourable Gordon Brown."

If a title can be expressed in different ways, try searching all of them as shown in the search query above. It will return all items about Prime Minister Brown.

Instead of...

Try...

New Jersey

"New Jersey" or "NJ"

Barack Obama

"Barack Obama" or "President Obama" or
"Mr. Obama"

MP

"M.P." or "Member of Parliament"

Tip 3: Mix Wildcards, Operators and Exact Phrases

Use the * (asterisk), ? (question mark), Boolean operators and " " (quotation marks) to further narrow your searches:

doc* AND "Supreme Court"

This query returns items on Supreme Court Documentation, Supreme Court Dockets, or Docking Supreme Court Hours.

all-star BEFORE NEAR(2) b*ball AND NOT ("NY Yankees" OR "NJ Nets")

This query returns items on baseball and basketball, but do not include items containing "NY Yankees" or "NJ Nets."

Tip 4: Searching for Exact Names and Places in Metadata Fields

Searching through metadata fields is simple using either the Search box or the Advanced Search window.

If you are looking for stories about the national debt with a specific story number range, enter the following query into the Search box:

storyid=4250* AND "National Debt”

This query returns all items with the exact phrase "National Debt" whose story number begins with "4250."

Looking for items about interest rates with Treasury in the slug? Enter the following into the Search box:

"interest rates" AND slug=Treasury

This query only returns stories containing "interest rates" anywhere and "Treasury" in the slug.

Search Tool Summary

To...

Do this...

Perform character matching

  • Use " ? " to match exactly one character.

Example: Pales???ian

  • Use " * " to match zero, one, or more characters.

Example: book*

Find ALL of the terms

Use AND between terms.

Example: Syria AND Embassy

Find ANY of these terms

Use OR between terms.

Example: War OR Iraq OR Iran

IGNORE a specific term

Precede the term with NOT (at the beginning of the query) o AND NOT (in the middle of the query).

Examples: NOT France, Apples AND NOT Macintosh

Find an EXACT term

Surround terms with quotation marks "  ".

Example: "Rising Oil Prices"

Perform one part of a search query first

Use Parenthesis to show which action is done first.

Example: Apples AND NOT ( Gala OR Fuji ) – searches first for Fuji or Gala and excludes them from the search for all Apples.

Perform a metadata field search

  • Use " = " to find matches with the specified criteria.

Example: headline=Olympics

  • Use " != " to ignore matches with the specified criteria.

Example: slug!=Kennedy

Find items with metadata containing the specified term

Use HAS; same as " = "

Example: selector HAS nja*

Find items with terms in close proximity

  • Use BEFORE to find item with the first term appearing some number of words before the second term.

Example: Cat BEFORE Hat

  • Use AFTER to find items with the first term appearing some number of words after the second term.

Example: Hat AFTER Cat

  • Use NEAR to find items where the first term appears some number of words before or after the second term; you can also use the BEFORE and AFTER operators with NEAR.

Examples: Connecticut NEAR(3) budget, 2006 BEFORE NEAR(2) Olympics, Potatoes AFTER NEAR(4) Idaho

  • Use ADJ to find items with terms that are right next to each other.

Example: Frequent ADJ Flyer