Searching For Single or Multiple Words

The simplest search is a single word that you think appears in the document you are looking for. If the term is unusual or unique, you will be more likely to find that specific document.

For example, if you are interested in accommodations for people with disabilities due to Lou Gehrig's disease, the following query will very likely find pages of interest to you:

Single Words

To enter a single word query, enter that word in lower case as shown below:

Tip: You can always restrict the search to the term itself by enclosing it in double quotation marks. For example, the following query finds pages that match only the word mine:

Always use double quotation marks to enclose terms that include unusual characters like ampersands, parentheses, etc. The FAST search engine automatically expands the search to include variations of the term with and without the unusual character.

For example, place the term Q&A in " " to match Q&A or Q & A:

Capitalization

If you enter your search term in completely in lower case or completely in upper case, FAST search engine looks for all mixed case variations.

For example, the following query will find pages that match stemmed variations of rose, Rose, and ROSE.

Tip: If you are looking for pages about someone named Rose, enter the name with an initial capital letter. To make the search more precise, enclose the word in double quotation marks, as in the following example.

However, when you are searching for abbreviations or acronyms, case is important.

For example, if you are looking for pages that refer to BLS (the acronym for the Bureau of Labor Sttaistics), enter the search term in all upper case.

Multiple Words

You can also enter multiple words into a text box to be searched at the same time. (Optionally, you can separate them with commas.) Unless enclosed within quotes as a phrase, each word entered into the search box is searched separately and documents with more than one of the words will rank higher than others.