Search for phrases

• Enclose search in quotation marks for exact matches
  • "war and peace"
  • "media watch"
  • "Australian Competition and Consumer Commission"

Combine terms

• Build a search using more than one combining word
• Place brackets around search groups for effective searching, e.g. (business AND law) NOT tax
• Use AND, OR, XOR, NOT between terms to make your search more specific
  • AND -- finds both terms in a record
  • OR -- finds both or either term in a record
  • XOR -- finds either term but not both in a record
  • NOT -- finds one term but not any other in a record
• Use symbols to replace combining words if you prefer
  • + [plus symbol] -- replaces AND
  • |   [pipe symbol] -- replaces OR
  • - [space hyphen] -- replaces NOT

Use truncation

• Use truncation [*] to find variations of your search term
• Truncation symbol substitutes an unlimited number of characters
  • electr* -- finds "electric", "electricity", "electron", "electrolysis", "electrocute" etc.
  • colo*1r -- finds "color" or "colour"
  • sul*2ur -- finds "sulfur" or "sulphur"
  • *refere* -- finds "preference", "preferential", "referee", "reference" etc.

Use wildcards

• Use wildcards [?] to find variations of your search term
• Wildcard symbol substitutes a single character
• Wildcard and truncation symbols can be used together
  • use? -- finds "user", "used", "uses"
  • wom?n -- finds "woman" or "women"
  • pro?ect* -- finds "project", "projects", "protected", "protection" etc.

Use operators

• Use operators to find terms in specific order
• Enter a space before and after the operator used
  • % -- finds terms next to each other in any order
  • ! -- finds terms next to each other in that order
  • %10 -- finds terms within ten words of each other in any order
  • !10 -- finds terms within ten words of each other in that order
  • @ -- finds terms similar in spelling to your term

Search fields

• Restrict a search to a specific field by entering a field code before the term
  • Use subject: to search the Subject field, e.g. subject:diabetes
  • Use ti: to search the Title field, e.g. ti:foreign correspondent
  • Use author: to search the Author field, e.g. author:peter ryan
  • Use summary: to search the Abstract field, e.g. summary:engineering hydraulic
  • Use fc: to search the full text field, e.g. fc:"native title" legislation
  • Use type: to search the document type, e.g. type:editorial
  • Use ib: to search the ISBN, e.g. IB:9781921401343
  • Use eib: to search the eISBN, e.g. eIB:1423748840
  • Use is: to search the ISSN, e.g. IS:1320-6567
  • Use eis: to search the eISSN, e.g. eIS:1836-2206

Search date and number ranges

• Use range operators to restrict a search to a range of dates or numbers in numeric fields
  • -   [range search]   -- finds dates and numbers within the range, e.g. py:2009-2012
  • =   [equals]   -- finds exact dates and numbers, e.g. pd:=2012
  • <>   [not equal to]   -- finds all dates and numbers other than the entry, e.g. py:<>2010
  • <   [less than]   -- finds dates and numbers less than the entry, e.g. vrf:<10
  • <=   [less than or equal to] -- finds dates and numbers less than or equal to the entry py:<=2007
  • >   [greater than]   -- finds dates and numbers greater than the entry, e.g. pg:>85
  • >=   [greater than or equal to]   -- finds dates and numbers greater than or equal to the entry, e.g. pg:>=15

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