Tips for Searching as Presented in the TRE Search Scenario

---

Tips for Searching                        

Click on BACK in the toolbar to exit this page.

---

At its simplest, a search 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. These tips will get you started with basic query language and acquaint you more fully with the capabilities of the TRE search engine.

• 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.

• 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

• 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.

• Put quotation marks around keywords if you want Index Server to take them literally. For instance, if you type the following query:
  
  "system near manager"

  The TRE search engine will literally look for the complete phrase system near manager. But if you type the same query without the quotation marks:
  
  system near manager

  The TRE search engine searches all documents for the words system and manager.

---

Click on BACK in the toolbar to exit this page.

Read the description of the Search scenario.

For more information, see the Technology-Rich Environments overview page.