Refining a Search
It's easy to refine a query to get precisely the results you want. Here are some effective techniques to try:
Identify a phrase
Before: military records After: "military records"
The before query is ambiguous. Is it looking for the home page containing the words "military" and "records." Identifying "military records" as a phrase eliminates the ambiguity. This is the most powerful query refinement technique. Add a discriminating word or a phrase.
Capitalize when appropriate
Before: president white house, After: President White House,
These examples, when all lower case, have a variety of possible interpretations. For example, without capitalization, the words president, white, and house, could refer to the concept of presidents in general, the color white, and any house on the planet. Capitalization makes it more likely that results will relate to the US President, who resides in the White House.
Use a require or reject operator (+,-)
Before: Thomas, Jefferson, declaration After: Thomas, +Jefferson -declaration
You can require that the word "Jefferson" be in the document by placing a plus sign before it. You can use the reject operator (the "minus" sign) so that no documents with the word "declaration" appear in the results document.
Use a field specifier
Before: genealogy After: title: genealogy
If you are looking for a particular page that you know the title of, use the title: field specifier to search for the word or phrase in title of the page. See Special Searches for more information on field specifiers.
