ExPub Help System

A Boolean search request consists of a group of words or phrases linked by connectors such as and and or that indicate the relationship between them.

For example:

benzene and phenol	both words must be present
benzene or phenol	Either word can be present
benzene w/5 phenol	benzene must occur within 5 words of phenol
benzene not w/5 phenol	benzene must occur, but not within 5 words of phenol
benzene and not phenol	only benzene must be present

If you use more than one connector, you should use parentheses to indicate precisely what you want to search for. For example:

benzene and phenol or toluene could mean (benzene and phenol) or toluene, or it could mean benzene and (phenol or toluene).

Noise words, such as if and the, are ignored in searches.

Search terms may include the following special characters:

?	Matches any single character. Example: dibenz? would match dibenzo but not dibenzol
*	Matches any number of characters. Example: benz* would match benzene, benzine, and benzyl

Words and Phrases: You do not need to use any special punctuation or commands to search for a phrase. Simply enter the phrase the way it ordinarily appears. You can use a phrase anywhere in a Full-text search request. For example:

benzene w/5 phenol protective clothing

If a phrase contains a noise word, the system will skip over the noise word when searching for it. For example:

a search for statue of liberty would retrieve any document containing the word statue, any intervening word, and the word liberty.

Punctuation inside of a search word is treated as a space. Thus, can't would be treated as a phrase consisting of two words: can and t. 1843(c)(8)(ii) would become 1843 c 8 ii (four words).