SEARCH HELP

PICO SEARCH INSTRUCTIONS

How To Search: Type words into the entry box that you want to search for, then click [Search].

Any Word: Just type one or more words to find any of the words. [ Find ANY ] is the usual default.
All Words: Type more than one word and select [ Find ALL ] to find all of the words. Or you can use Booleans (see below).
Exact Phrase: "..." You can search for exact phrases by surrounding them in double quotes. Or you can just type the words and select [ Find EXACT phrase ]. Punctuation must be the same to be found between words, for example "Smith, John"
Boolean Operators: + - Use + in front of each word or a quoted phrase that you require. Use - in front of each word that you want to exclude.
Boolean Expressions: AND OR NOT ( )Use AND, OR, NOT, (, and ) to form a Boolean expression. AND requires, OR allows, NOT excludes. Use double quotes to protect the words "and", "or", or "not" in a phrase.

Examples:

Query	Gets the documents with
stock market	'stock' or 'market' or both
"stock market"	the phrase 'stock market'
+stock +market	'stock' and 'market'
+stock -market	'stock' but not 'market'
+president -"United States"	'president' but not 'United States'
(stock OR market) AND NOT president	'stock' or 'market', and without 'president'

Capitalization doesn't matter. The ranked results will come from a total match on the words and phrases which you supply, so try to think of several specific terms for your topic and spell them correctly. It may help to include important plurals and derived words too, like [address addresses contact contacting information] .

Site maintained by Michael Corson (CCFHA Member M-297). Please report any errors, comments, or suggestions to

The CCFHA web site originally created by Jeff Owens (CCFHA Member M-260).

This page updated 03 Dec 2011