HSS Full-Text Search Tips
The HSS Portal uses
the Verity full-text engine to index and search all
the text components of documents, web pages, or both.
The button to the left of this Search Tips button
will execute a query against the entire text of all
the documents and all the web pages currently housed
on the HSS servers, or subsets thereof. You can scroll
down that Search page itself to check off the document
collections and/or web pages that you want to search,
or search everything by not specifying a subset.
Full-text searching differs from the Card Catalog
search in that full-text focuses on the entire body
of the document whereas the Card Catalog search queries
only the index data selected by the document's originator.
These Search Tips provide help and examples on how
to write a full-text query using the Verity engine.
Writing a query is a way to ask a question about a
subject. The way in which you structure the query
will determine which documents will be returned. The
simplest way is to enter a word or words that describe
the subject of interest to you. Without specifying
additional query syntax, two or more words entered
will be treated by Verity as a phrase. For example,
if you enter
radiation exposure
the engine will find all documents containing the
phrase "radiation exposure" where the two word occur
together. If you enter
radiation AND exposure
the engine will find documents containing both words
but not necessarily in a phrase or in any specific
proximity to each other. If you enter
radiation OR exposure
the engine will find documents having EITEHR word.
Some documents will, of course, contain both words
but that is not necessary to satisfy this query syntax.
The documentation below introduces how to write queries
using Verity search features, and covers:
How to Write Basic Queries
You can write a basic query using words and phrases,
separated by commas. If you want to see documents
about using text editors to create Web documents,
you can start with a single-word query, such as:
- editor
In this case, your query finds all the documents
that include the word "editor." However, this search
would include not only documents about text editors,
but also documents about people who are editors.
(You don't have to specify the plural form, because
a basic search includes stemmed variations, such
as "editors.") Documents about the Web that did
not include the word "editor" would not be retrieved.
To ask for more specific results, you could enter
several words or phrases, separated by commas, that
describe the subject more precisely, such as:
- text editor, document, web
In this case, your query finds documents that contain
"text editor," "document," or "Web." (Case doesn't
matter in queries: a word entered in lower case
will match words in upper case, lower case, or mixed
case.) The most relevant documents, such as those
that discuss creating HTML documents for the Web
using a text editor, will appear at the top of the
results list.
How to Incorporate Verity Operators
You can make your queries more specific by combining
the words you used for basic queries with operators.
Operators are special words that are used to indicate
logical relationships between the descriptive terms
that make up your query.
Basic Operators
Here are basic operators that you can specify as
part of queries.
|
Operator
|
Description
|
|
AND
|
Finds documents that contain all of the search
elements you specify.
Ex: nuclear AND workers |
|
OR
|
Finds documents that show evidence of at
least one of your search elements.
Ex: nuclear OR workers |
|
NOT
|
Finds documents containing the word preceding
it and excludes documents containing the word
that follows it.
Ex: nuclear NOT control rods |
|
<NEAR>
|
Finds documents containing specified search
terms, where the closer the search terms are
within a document, the higher the document's
score.
Ex: nuclear <NEAR> control rods |
|
<SENTENCE>
|
Finds documents that include all of the words
you specify within the same sentence.
Ex: nuclear <SENTENCE> pressurized water
reactor |
|
<PARAGRAPH>
|
Finds documents that include all of the search
elements you specify within a paragraph.
Ex: nuclear <PARAGRAPH> boiling water
reactor |
|
<THESAURUS>
|
Thesaurus operator that searches for documents
containing words that are synonyms for the
word you specify.
Ex: <THESAURUS> altitude |
|
,
(comma)
|
Finds documents containing at least one of
the words specified, ranking them using "the
more, the better" approach, so documents with
the most evidence of the words searched for
are given the highest rank.
Ex: nuclear, reactor, pressurized, accident
|
NOTE: AND, OR,
and NOT are treated as operators by
default, and do not require brackets. If you want
to use them as literal words, place them in double
quotes. All other operators must be placed within
brackets.
More About Operators
Here are some additional operators that you can
specify as part of queries.
|
Operator
|
Description
|
|
?
|
Wildcard operator that represents any one
character. You can use a ? to
specify the first letter of a word.
Ex: DOE Order 420.? |
|
*
|
Wildcard operator that represents one or
more characters.You cannot use a *
to specify the first letter of a word.
Ex: hand* (finds handbook, handle, handball,
etc.) |
|
' '
(single quotes) |
Placing a word in single quotation marks
finds stemmed variations of the word. NOTE: The default behavior
is to find stemmed variations if no quotation
marks are used.
Ex. 'edit' (finds "edited", "editing", "edition",
etc.) |
|
" "
(double quotes) |
Placing a word in double quotation marks
finds exact matches only, excluding stemmed
variations of the word.
Ex: "edit" (does not find "edited", editing",
edition", etc.) |
Query Examples
Using these examples, you can write queries that
will return exactly the information you want.
Finding Words
Most queries can be written by entering the words
and phrases you're interested in, separated by commas.
If you were looking for information about the Web
or about using laptop computers, you could enter:
- web, laptop computers
This query returns documents that contain the terms
"Web" (case doesn't matter in queries), "laptop
computers," or both. Your results list will display
a ranked list of documents, with the most relevant
documents at the top of the list.
Finding Phrases
Perhaps you want to see documents that refer to
a series of words that occur in a specific order,
such as "Web publishing with HTML". You could enter
the whole phrase:
- web publishing with html
This query returns only documents that contain
all of these words in the exact sequence you specified,
including stemmed variations of the search terms.
Finding a Specific Subject
The simple query returned some documents about
the Web, some documents about laptop computers,
and some about both subjects. If your real interest
is in accessing the Web using a laptop computer,
you can use the AND operator to be
more specific. You could enter:
- web AND laptop computers
This query returns only those documents that contain
both "Web" and "laptop computers" in the same document,
so this list will be shorter than the results of
the query written using commas. (You can enter AND
in lower case and it will still be treated as an
operator.)
AND is treated as an operator unless
it is surrounded by quotation marks. So if you want
to use the word "and" as part of a phrase, place
it inside quotation marks. For example, to search
for the phrase "addresses and URLs", you would enter:
addresses "and" URLs
Excluding Terms
You might want to specifically exclude certain
documents from your results list. For example, you
might want to see documents about most Web browsers,
but you're not interested in Lynx. You could enter:
- web browser NOT lynx
This query returns only documents referring to
Web browsers that do not also mention Lynx. If a
document includes both "Web browser" and "Lynx,"
it will be excluded.
This page was last updated on May 11, 2007
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