Search

There are several techniques that will allow you to expand or restrict your search.

Using Quotation Marks

You can use quotation marks ( " " ) around a series of words to limit your search results to pages containing a specific phrase. For example, a search for "space weather" will find pages containing the phrase space weather, and not pages containing the separate words space and weather without the whole phrase.

Wildcard ( * ) Searches

An asterisk ( * ) placed at the end of a search term is a wildcard used to expand your search results. The search engine will look for any words that include the letters before the asterisk. For example, a search for astro* will find pages containing astronomy as well as astrophysics, because both words begin with the letters astro. This is a good way to search for both singular and plural versions of words, as searching for planet* will return both planet and planets.

'AND' Searches

Using the word and between two words in your search terms will limit your results to pages containing both of the words. For example, a search for red and blue will only find pages containing both red and blue.

'OR' Searches

Using the word or between two words in your search terms will expand your results to pages containing either of the words. For example, a search for red or blue will find pages containing either red or blue, but not necessarily both words.

'NOT' Searches

Using the word not between two words in your search terms will limit your results to pages containing the first word but not the second word. For example, a search for red not green will find pages containing the word red, excluding the pages also containing the word green.

Combining 'AND,' 'OR,' and 'NOT' Searches

You can use a combination of any of these search techniques to perform very precise searches. The search engine will go through your terms and find and exclude pages based on the order of the terms. For example, a search for (red and green) or blue not yellow will first find all of the pages containing both red and green (the parenthesis are an important means of grouping terms). Then, it will add any pages containing the word blue. Finally, it will exclude any pages within these results containing the word yellow. The results will include all pages containing both red and green, or just blue, but not yellow.