Content-based search tips

You can use text to narrow your searches and return more specific results. By defining text search criteria, you can find specific words within documents. You can search for exact matches, use search phrases, use wildcard characters, use proximity searches, and exclude terms.

Matching terms exactly

Surrounding a term or phrase with double quotation marks (") returns search results that contain that exact phrase. For example, if you want to review documents that contain the phrase credit card fraud 2012 and you do not want documents for fraud that was committed in 2011 or earlier, enclose the search terms in double quotation marks. Term variants, such as credit cards and credit card frauds, are not considered matches for exact match searches. The phrase "credit card fraud 2012" does not match credit card frauds 2012. Also, no other terms can appear between any two terms in the phrase, so credit card online fraud 2012 does not match. The search is not case-sensitive, so it matches Credit Card Fraud 2012. Also, punctuation is ignored, so credit card, fraud 2012 matches.

Table 1. Examples of exact match searches
Find	Search terms
The phrase `Justice Department` without related phrases.	`"Justice Department"`
All of the information for a 2011 company annual report for a specific year and not the reports for previous years.	`"2011" annual report`

Searching for unknown or variable characters or terms

Wildcard characters, such as the asterisk (*) and question mark (?), are useful when you are not sure of the spelling, exact name, or variations of a term. Use the asterisk to match none or multiple characters within a single term. Use the question mark to match a single character.

For example, the search term czech* returns documents that contain the terms czech, czechoslovakia, and czechoslovakian. Similarly, the search phrase John * Kennedy returns documents that contain the terms John Fitzgerald Kennedy and John F Kennedy.

The asterisk wildcard character does not match across word separators (such as the space character). For example, the search term Jo*dy does not return documents that contain the phrase John Kennedy. Similarly, the search term fin*int returns documents that contain the term fingerprint but it does not return documents that contain the phrase fine print.

Never use the asterisk wildcard character without at least one other character. * is not a valid search term. The search term J* returns documents that contain terms that start with j while the search term *y returns documents that contain terms that end with y.

The search term ra?or matches razor and rasor, but not raptor. Multiple consecutive question marks match the same number of characters as there are question marks. For example, the search term psych????y returns documents that contain the term psychology or psychiatry, but it does not return documents that contain the term psychotherapy.

Putting a wildcard character at the beginning of a search term (for example, *zech) might slow the performance of the search engine. The search engine must search every character of each potential match, at least until it finds zech. For a more efficient search, place the asterisk at the end of a search term (for example, czech*) to limit the amount of information that the search engine must search. The search engine can eliminate all results that do not start with c and it can then eliminate all results whose second character is not z.

Table 2. Examples of wildcard character searches
Find	Search terms
Information about the judicial court system, such as court documentation, court dockets, or docking court hours.	`doc* court`
All reports that are generated by the legal defense departments in both the United States and Canada. The file names for the reports include the word `defense` or `defence`.	`legal defen?e`
The name `Mikhail Gorbachev`.	`Mi*l Gorbachev`

Searching within a specific range of words

Use a proximity search to narrow your search by specifying how close search terms must be to one another. Terms that are close to each other are more likely to be related than terms that are far apart in a document. For example, a smaller word range returns documents where there is a strong connection between term A and term B. A larger word range returns documents that contain both terms, but their relationship is not as close.

Table 3. Examples of proximity searches
Find	Search terms
You are reviewing statistics for crime rates that involve certain vehicles in a specific part of a city. You want to find insurance claims that include information about crimes that involve minivans and are handled by specific police precincts.	`north police reports minivans car jacking` Enter `15` for the word range to get fewer results that are a closer match.
You are gathering research for possible side effects that occurred in diabetes drug trials in the United States and Canada. Your first task is to locate medical records for patients in North America who are in drug trials for diabetes.	`North America diabetes drug trials` Enter `1000` for the word range to get more results.

Excluding terms

Use the minus sign (-) to exclude items that contain certain terms. The minus sign (-) applies to both a term and its variants.

Table 4. Examples of excluding terms
Find	Search terms
Documents about the philosopher `Calvin` and not the cartoon character `Calvin`.	`Calvin -Hobbes`.
Documents and images about the original `Star Trek` series and not about `Voyager` and `Star Trek: The Next Generation`.	`Star Trek -Voyager -"Next Generation"`.

Tip: To use the minus sign (-) before your search terms, click Text options > Advanced operators.