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Search Tips

Superfund Basic Research Program

Search for specific keywords contained the SBRP site pages. Use the checkboxes on the advanced search form to restrict or widen your search to specific parts of the web site.

The keyword search option allow site visitors to enter simple, comma-delimited strings and use wildcard characters. By default, a simple query searches for words, not strings. For example, entering the word Eng will find documents containing the word eng but not engineering. You can use wildcards, however to broaden the scope of the search, e.g. Eng* will return documents containing both eng and engineering (refer to the section below for available wildcards).

Case is ignored in a keyword search. Eng and eng are evaluated the same.

You can enter multiple words separated by commas: mechanical, training, procedures. The comma in a query expression is treated like a logical OR. If you omit the commas, the query expression is treated as a phrase, so documents would be searched for the phrase mechanical training procedures.

A keyword search looks for words that derive from those entered in the query expression, so that entering engineer will return documents that contain engineer, engineered, engineering etc.

You may also use the modifiers AND, OR and NOT, e.g. engineer AND mechanical NOT electrical will return search results for mechanical engineers and ignore electrical engineers.

Available Wildcard Characters

? Question. Specifies any single alphanumeric character.
* Asterisk. Specifies zero or more alphanumeric characters. Avoid using the asterisk as the first character in a search string. Asterisk is ignored in a set, [ ] or an alternative pattern { }.
[ ] Square brackets. Specifies one of any character in a set, as in sl[iau]m which locates slim, slam, and slum. Square brackets indicate an implied OR.
^ Caret. Specifies one of any character not in the set as in sl[^ia]m which locates slum but not slim or slam.
- Hyphen. Specifies a range of characters in a set as in c[a-r]t which locates every word beginning with c, ending with t and containing any letter from a to r.

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This page URL: http://tools.niehs.nih.gov/sbrp/search/SearchTips.cfm
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Last Reviewed: 19 May 2008