Full-Text Search

Enter the collection you want to search:

Select the type of search (see below):

   Simple
   Explicit (using <EXPLICIT> terms)

Please enter a search string:

Examples of queries showing two different query formats (EXPLICIT or SIMPLE). If you wish to use parentheses in your search string, please surround the query in single or double quotation marks.

Search Expression	Interpretation
<NEAR/2> (personal, information)	All documents where "personal" is within two(2) words of "information" ('EXPLICIT' format)
<OR> (impecunious, charges)	Any documents which contain either word ('EXPLICIT' format)
impecunious OR charges	Any documents which contain either word ('SIMPLE' format)
<STEM> inform	Find all occurrences of words beginning with "inform" ('EXPLICIT' format)
<AND> (commercial, business)	Any documents which contain both words ('EXPLICIT' format)
<AND> (commercial, business, information)	Any documents which contain all words ('EXPLICIT' format)
<THESAURUS> locate	Expands the search to include the word entered ("locate") and its synonyms ('EXPLICIT' format)
locat*	Search for all words beginning with "locat" (locate, location, etc) ('SIMPLE' format)
locat?	Search for all words beginning with "locat" and having one(1) further character(locate but not location) ('SIMPLE' format)
b[aei]t	Matches any one the characters in the brackets, as in "b[aei]t" which locates "bat" "bet" and "bit" Square brackets indicate an implied OR ('SIMPLE' format)
<PARAGRAPH> (personal, information)	Selects documents that include all of the words you specify within the same paragraph ('EXPLICIT' format)
<SENTENCE> (personal, information)	Selects documents that include all of the words you specify within the same sentence ('EXPLICIT' format)
"This is the phrase I am looking for"	Documents containing the exact PHRASE specified ('SIMPLE' format)
"clause 6(1)"	All decisions containing the phrase "clause 6(1)" - please note that if you do not surround the phrase with quotes (either single or double) then an error will result ('SIMPLE' format)

  
'Simple' syntax

When you use simple syntax, the search engine implicitly interprets single words as if they were modified by the MANY and STEM operators. By implicitly applying the MANY operator, the search engine calculates each document’s score based on the density of the search term in the searched documents. The more frequent is the occurrence of a word in a document, the higher is the document’s score. As a result, the search engine ranks documents according to word density as it searches for the word you specify, as well as words that have the same stem. For example, "films", "filmed," and "filming" are stemmed variations of the word "film." To search for documents containing the word "film" and its stem words, you can enter the word "film" without modification. When documents are ranked by relevance, they appear in a list with the most relevant documents at the top.

When you use explicit syntax, the search engine interprets the search terms you enter as literals. For example, by entering the word "film" (including quotation marks) using explicit syntax, the stemmed versions of the word "film", "films," "filmed," and "filming" are ignored.