Hints on How to Create a Query

Too Many Results

• Try using more terms to narrow your results. For example, "attenuation natural" instead of "attenuation."
• Try using one of the pulldown menus to limit your search to a particular topic, investigation, or publication type.
• Try restricting your search to a range of years.
• Try restricting your search with one of the exact match checkboxes under the title or author field.

No Results or Very Few Results

• Try broadening your search with fewer words or terms.
• Try using just the root or first part of related words in the title field. For example, "microb" instead of "microbiological."
• If you checked one of the exact match checkboxes, try the search without the box checked.
• Try using fewer pulldown menus.

Can’t Find a Paper by Author _____

• Try searching by just the last name. First names are not used in the data base.
• If using initials, place them after the name and select the phrase button. For example, " Harvey, J.W." instead of "J.W. Harvey"

Can’t Find Publications on _____

• Remember the search engine does not search abstracts; it searches the title of the publication. Abstracts are not included in the data base.
• Try broadening your search with more general terms or fewer terms.
• Try using one of the topics in the topic pulldown menu.

Error Messages

• Try your search using only letters.
• Most punctuation is either filtered out (periods, comas, dashes) or not allowed (semicolons, colons, …).

Next     Help Index