Search Help
Searching the SSSL Bibliography basically works the same way as the main internet search engines like Google or Altavista work. There are minor differences, however.
Inclusion and ExclusionThe search engine works with automatic "and" inclusion. This means that the search only returns results all of your search terms. There is no need to put your search terms in quotes or to include the word "AND" in your query.
If you want to exclude a specific word from your search -- just add a minus to that word, for example: Faulkner -Yoknapatawpha returns all matches that include Faulkner, but it excludes the matches with Yoknapatawpha.
The search engine also automatically excludes common words like and, in, the, etc., as well as single character instances. When a certain word or character is excluded, it will say so in the result header bar.
Case SensitiveThe searches are, and are not case sensitive, in a way. Keywords in lowercase will match both lower- and upper-case words, and also words with combinations of both. Uppercase searches, however, will only give exact matches. For example: poetry will match poetry, Poetry, and if such a match would exist PoEtrY. The keyword Poetry would only match the exact word: Poetry. Searching with uppercase keywords will produce more specific results than searching without will.
Word Variations (Stemming) Unlike most search engines, the SSSL Search does use "stemming". What this means, is that searching for jefferson will also give a match for jeffersonian. This also means that there is no need to use "wildcards" (like jefferson*) when searching the Bibliography.
The DirectoryThe search engine is not the only way to find annotations for articles and books. Clicking on the "Directory"-tab will enable you to browse through the database using categories and alphabetic listings. |
