Help on Searching the Index

By default, the Quarterly Index performs a "keyword" search on the full text of each item in the database. Simply enter one or more words in the search box, then select the "GO" button to display your search results.

Please note: searching is case senstive. It is recommended that you enter all search words in lower case for the broadest possible search.

Understanding the Default Settings

By default, the Quarterly Index performs a "keyword" search on the full text of each item in the database. The default search settings include:

Search within: --> is set to "Full Text" -- allowing for the broadest possible set of results

Match by: --> is set to "All Words" -- the equivalent of the boolean AND operator

Stemming: --> is set to "on" -- this broadens your results to include both word roots and word derivations. For example, if your search word is fish, and you enable stemming, your results will include fishing and fisher. Likewise, if your search word is fishing, your results will contain sites with the word fish.

Changing the Defaults

Search within:

By default, this is set to "Full Text." It is possible to limit the search to specific portions of the records for an entry in the Quarterly Index, as follows:

• Article Title - word(s) found in the title of an individual article
• Author - any word(s) from the name of the personal or corporate author
• Subject - any word(s) from the subjec terms used
• Date - any word(s) or number in the date portion of the record
• Country - any word(s) from the country name
• Journal - any word(s) from the title of the journal

Selecting anything, aside from Full Text will have the effect of limiting your search.

Match by:

By default, this is set to "All Words" or the equivalent of the boolean AND operator. Two other options can be selected:

• Any Word - the equivalent of the boolean OR operator
• Exact Phrase - words must be found next to each other and in the exact order that you entered them

Stemming:

By default, word stemming is turned "on." This broadens your results to include both word roots and word derivations. The only other option is to set word stemming to "off."

Search Results

Resorting Search Results

By default, search results are displayed in "relevance" order (those most relevant to your search criteria will appear first). However, it is possible to re-sort your search results in either ascending or descending order by title.

Note: Initial articles are ignored in all title sorts.

Searching Within Results

A search refinement box is present on the results page for any search. Look for "Search within these results for:" Enter search word(s) here to limit the search to only those records that matched your original search.