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How to Compose a Search
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The WUTC Search Tool allows you to search for information contained in the web site that may not be readily available through the default views.
Composing Searches:
Type the word(s) and/or phrase(s) you're looking for in the Search Bar. To search for a specific phrase, put the phrase in quotes. When searching for words, type in the words you want using the "logical operators" AND, OR, NOT, etc. Below are some hints for using the various features of the Search Tool.
Logical Operators:
| Typing any of these | Finds |
| NOT not ! | documents that do not contain the condition or word following NOT |
| AND and & | documents that contain both the conditions or words separated by AND |
| OR or | | documents that contain either of the conditions or words separated by OR |
| ACCRUE accrue , (comma) | the same documents as OR, but increases the relevance ranking of a document when the document contains more than one matching condition or word |
| @ | documents which contain both of the words that are separated by @, as long as the words are next to each other in the documents. (Do not place spaces between @ and either word.) |
Examples:
| Typing this text | Finds documents that contain |
| cat & dog & fish | all three of these words |
| cat | dog | fish | at least one of these words |
| cat, dog, fish | at least one of these words. Notes gives higher relevance to documents that contain two or three of these words |
| dog@fish | dog and fish next to each other |
| (dog AND cat) OR fish | dog and cat; fish |
| dog AND (cat OR fish) | dog and cat; dog and fish |
| dog AND NOT (cat OR fish) | dog, as long as they don't also contain cat or fish |
Changing the relevance ranking of certain search words
You can use the Termweight operator to change the relevance ranking of search words, thus increasing or decreasing their importance in the search. Documents in which the search text is most important appear at the top of the list of search results (when you sort the results by relevance).
To use the Termweight operator, type your search text as follows:
Examples of using the Termweight operator
The table below shows some examples of using the Termweight operator to change the relevance ranking of search words.
| Search text | Results of search |
| termweight 70 video or termweight 30 audio | Finds documents that contain "video" or "audio" or both. Gives a much higher relevance to "video" than to "audio." |
| termweight 25 photo or termweight 75 audio or termweight 50 video | Finds documents that contain any of the words "photo," "audio," or "video." Gives the highest relevance to "audio," the next highest relevance to "video," and the least relevance to "photo." |
Limiting Search Results:
To change the number of search results you will receive, click on the button to the right of the phrase "No Limit" on the Search Tool. This will pop up a display of your search limit choices
(10, 50, 100, 200, or No Limit). Click on the appropriate number and your search will return the corresponding number of results.
Word Options:
This allows you to set how "picky" your search will be. You have the option of directing the computer to search for the EXACT word(s) that you have entered. Again, this will limit the number of results your search will yield. To set this search parameter, click on the small box next to the phrase, "Find exact word matches only."
Your other option is to direct the computer to search for related words, phrases, or topics as specified in the computer's thesaurus. This will most likely result in a higher yield of search results. To set this parameter, click on the small box next to "Find word variations as defined by thesaurus."
Sort:
Another set of options available to our WebGuests is to tell the computer how to sort the search results. Searching by "Relevance" allows the computer to yield results in its default setting, searching by "Oldest first (by date)" will sort the documents from oldest to latest, and searching by "Newest first (by date) will sort from latest to oldest." To pick your sort setting, simply click on the button next to "Relevance". When the pop-up menu displays your options, click on your sort choice. The computer is now ready to sort its search results according to your wishes.
Date Range:
This option allows you to limit your number of search results by specifying the date a document was created. The computer will look for documents that were created on, before, or after (depending on your choice) the date you specify. To do this, click on the button next to "On", then click on the appropriate choice in the pop-up menu. Then, to the right of that box, type in the date you're looking for. (NOTE: If you do not specify a date, the computer will not use "Date Range" as a search parameter.)
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Section: How to Use the WUTC Web Site
Subsection: 6. Searching the Site
Date Composed: 11/05/1997 Date Modified: 11/05/1997