Tips for searching

At its simplest, a query can be just a word or a phrase. But with the tips on this page, you can change the focus of your query to give you more precise results. These tips will get you started with basic query language and acquaint you with the power of the search engine.

Word searching

Type one or more key words separated by the operator AND (see below for more information on the use of Boolean operators).

Sample search: computer AND printer will give a list of documents containing both computer and printer. The documents containing the most instances of the key words will appear at the top of the search results list.

Boolean operators

Are used to combine key words into one search.

• & (and) : used to include two or more concepts in a search. (i.e. & narrows a search.)

  Example: risk & audit will retrieve documents containing both concepts.

• |(or) : used to search for synonyms, related words or different forms of a word. (i.e. | expands a search.)

  Example: personnel | human resources will retrieve documents containing either or both of the concepts.

• &! (and not): used to exclude documents containing certain key words. (i.e. &! narrows a search.)

  Example: apple &! computer will retrieve only documents about the fruit.

• ~ (near): used rather than & to search for words close to each other (proximity searching).

  Example: both of these queries, system & manager and system ~ manager, look for the words system and manager on the same page.

  But with ~, the returned pages are ranked in order of proximity. The closer together the words are in the document, the higher the document will be ranked and the closer the document will be to the top of the search results list .