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Quick search
The 'Quick search' is the small box that appears at the top right hand corner of
every web page and searches the whole site for relevant information.
Using keywords in the Quick Search
To enter keywords, type each word into the box with a space separating each one.
For example: healthy bread will find all pages containing all of the keywords, both "healthy" AND "bread".
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Finding exact phrases
To group words together as a phrase, put double-quotes around the phrase.
For example: "healthy bread" will find pages containing the whole phrase "healthy bread".
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Using wildcards
Wildcards use an asterisk * to search for variations on a word.
For example: Br* will find Bread and Breaded.
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Submitting your search
When you have entered your search keywords and made your other selections, click
GO.
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Advanced Search
The Advanced Search is easy to use and can really help you find what you are
looking for. Basically, unlike the Quick Search, it allows you to target or refine
your search. You don't have to be a search expert to make it work, simply use it
to combine a number of searching criteria.
Entering your search keywords
You have the following four options:
1) All of the words
This will find any information that contains ALL of the keywords. This is the
default selection. For example: healthy bread will find documents containing both "healthy" and "bread".
This option also allows you to carry out more complex searches, using for
example, brackets, AND, OR, NOT and NEAR to build an expression for your search.
For example:
healthy AND (bread or rolls) will find documents containg "healthy" and either the word "bread" or "rolls"
healthy OR bread will find information containing either "healthy" or "bread" plus the whole phrase "healthy and bread".
healthy AND NOT bread will find all information containing "healthy" but not "bread".
You can use the minus sign (-) in place of AND NOT but make sure you don't
leave
a space after the "-".
(business OR industry) AND safety -trade will find all documents mentioning
either "business" or "industry" which also mention
"safety", but any documents mentioning "trade" would be excluded.
child NEAR obesity will rank documents where the keywords appear close to
each
other higher
than
those where they appear in separate sentences.
2) Any of the words
For example: healthy bread will find documents containing either "healthy" or
"bread" or both, and the ranking will be defined by the frequency and
proximity of
the
words in each document.
3) Exact phrase
For example: if you select “Exact phrase” in the advanced search, "healthy and bread" will find documents containg the whole
phrase "healthy and bread".
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Targetting your search
Selecting “Title ONLY” or “Title and Summary ONLY”
Usually you'll want to search for your keywords anywhere in the title,
summary
and full text of the document. However, if you are getting too many results,
you
can limit the search to look in the “Title ONLY”. A search on “Title ONLY”
will
reduce your results but it may make them more relevant to the keywords you
are
searching for.
Limit your search to specific sections of the website
Navigate to the menu section or e-library folder you want to search within
and
then open the advanced search form. Tick the box 'search this section only'
to
limit the results to the current folder and its sub-folders.
You can limit results to the most recently updated documents by selecting a
particular date range to search.
Limit the number of results
Limit your results by using the drop down to pick a maximum number of results
you want to be returned.
Sort by “Best match”
If you would prefer to list the results in order of relevance rather than
listed
in date order, with the most recent documents at the top, click on
"best
match" at
the bottom of the Advanced Search form. “Best Match” is
based
on a mix of
criteria including the number of times your keyword/s
appear
in
the
document,
their
proximity to the top of the document and
their
proximity
to
each other.