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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