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. These tips will get you started with the basic query language supported by PIRS Search Engine and acquaint you with the various methods to construct a database query.

• Look for words with the same prefix. For example, in your query form type John in the Last Name of the Principal Investigator field to find John, Johnson, Johnston, and so on.

• In your query form type John$ in the Last Name of the Principal Investigator field to just find John, and not Johnson, Johnston, and so on.

• 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 John but not Johnson, write the following query:

  John AND NOT Johnson

• Add the OR keyword to find all instances of either one word or another, for example:

  Smith OR John

  This query finds all pages that mention Smith or John or both.

• Add the AND keyword to find all instances of both or all the Words, for example:

  Molecular AND Science in the Keywords of Project field.

  This query finds all Awards that mention both Molecular AND Science in the Title or Abstract.

• Put quotation marks around keywords if you want the Search Engine to take them literally. For instance, if you type the following query in the Keywords field:
  
  "technicians and hazardous"

  The Search Engine will literally look for the complete phrase technicians and hazardous in the Title or Abstract. But if you type the same query without the quotation marks:
  
  technicians and hazardous

  The Engine searches all Abstract on File for the words technicians and hazardous.

• If you want to search for a particular phrase, put quotation marks around them. For Instance, if you type the following query:
  
  "Massachusetts Institute"

  The Search Engine will literally look for the complete phrase Massachusetts Institute. But if you type the same query without the quotation marks:
  
  Massachusetts Institute

  then the Engine would complain that the Search String is an invalid one.
  

• Search Strings provided in the various Input fields are 'And' ed. together to build the query.
  
  For Instance, if you type the following query
  
  "Massachusetts Institute" in Institution Name field and
  
  Select Calculus Initiative in Program Name field and
  
  Select FY1996 in Fiscal Year field,
  
  then the Search Engine will search for all those Awards granted to the Massachusetts Institute during the Fiscal Year FY1996 and that fall under the Program Calculus Initiative.