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Tips for
Searching
At its simplest, a query can be just a word
or a phrase. But with the tips on this page, you can expand the focus of your
query to give you more complete results.
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Refine your queries with the AND NOT
keywords to exclude certain text from your search. For example, if you want to
find all instances of surfing but not the Net, write the
following query:
surfing AND NOT the Net
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Add the OR keyword to find all
instances of either one word or another, for example:
Abbott
OR Costello
This query finds all pages that mention Abbott or
Costello or both.
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Search for all forms of a word. For
example, in the form type sink** to find sink, sinking,
sank, and sunk.
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Search with the keyword NEAR,
rather than AND, for words close to each other. For example,
both of these queries, system and manager and system near
manager, look for the words system and manager on
the same page. But with NEAR, the returned pages are ranked in
order of proximity: The closer together the words are, the higher the rank of
that page.
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Look for words with the same prefix. For
example, in your query form type key* to find key, keying,
keyhole, keyboard, and so on.
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Put quotation marks around keywords if you
want to take them literally. For instance, if you type the following query:
"system near manager"
this will will literally look for the complete phrase system near manager.
But if you type the same query without the quotation marks:
system near manager
It will search all documents for the words system and manager.
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Use Free Text Queries
if you want to enter queries using natural language. This will examine your
query, extract nouns and noun phrases and construct a query for you. With free
text queries you can enter any text you want, from a proper question, to a
string of words and phrases, without worrying about the query language. For
example, if you type in the following query:
"How do register for my MCSD?"
This will create a query for you automatically and begin the search. Note that
when you're using free text queries, the regular query language features are
disabled and keywords such as AND, OR, and
NEAR are interpreted as normal words.
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