Phrase

" "

Use " " to find documents that contain your search terms next to each other.

Example: "companies act" will find documents where "companies" and "act" are next to each other.

Boolean

AND

When AND is used, all the terms in your search will appear in the returned documents, even if the terms are far apart from each other.

Example: pensions AND social will find documents that contain both the terms pensions and social.

NB: this is the default setting, even without adding AND between terms.

Boolean

OR

Use OR when at least one of your search terms must appear in the results. You can use OR to search for synonyms, alternate spellings, or abbreviations.

Example: pensions OR social will find documents that contain either of the terms pensions or social.

Boolean

NOT

Use NOT to exclude specific terms from search results.

Example: pensions OR social NOT tax will find documents that contain the terms pensions or social, but not the term tax.

Wildcard

*

Use the wildcard * to find a root word, plus all the words made by adding letters to the end of it.

Example: bank* will find "bank", "banks", "banker", "banking", and others

NB: you can replace any character within a word e.g. ba*k

Wildcard

?

Use the wildcard ? when you are unsure of how a term ends. Replace a character in the term, using a question mark for each character you want to replace.

Example: CR? will find "CRD", "CRR", "CRA" and others.

Proximity

~[0-9]

Use the proximity search ~7, this lets you look for terms based on whether they occur within a specified distance of each other.

Example: "retain stricter"~7 will find the word stricter within seven words of retain.

Fuzzy

~

Use the the fuzzy search ~ to find results even when the terms are partially spelt or misspelt.

Example: roam~ will find terms like roams, foam and foams. It will also match the word "roam" itself.

Grouping

( )

Use grouping ( ) when performing more complex searches.

Example: (adopt OR retain) AND stricter will find either "adopt" or "retain" and "stricter".

Boosting

^

Use boosting ^ to promote the importance of a term.

Example: adopt^4 retain will find results that prioritise the term adopt over the word retain.