Search tips
Search terms
In a search form, enter words, phrases, and plain language.
Words
To search for multiple words, separate them with spaces.
Phrases
To search for an exact phrase, surround it with double-quotation marks. A string of capitalized words is assumed to be a name. Separate a series of names with commas. Commas are not needed when the phrases are surrounded by quotation marks.
The following example searches for a document that contains the phrases "international adoption " and "South Korea ":
"intercountry adoption" "south korea"
Plain language
To search with plain language, enter a question or concept. The search identifies the important words and searches for them.
For example, enter a question such as:
Where is the child safety service centre in Mount Gravatt?
This query produces the same results as entering:
child safety service centre Mount Gravatt
Including and excluding search terms
You can limit searches by excluding or requiring search terms, or by limiting the areas of the document that are searched.
A minus sign (–) immediately preceding a search term (word or phrase) excludes documents containing the term.
A plus sign (+) immediately preceding a search term (word or phrase) means returned documents are guaranteed to contain the term.
If neither sign is associated with the search term, the results may include documents that do not contain the specified term as long as they meet other search criteria.
Field searches
The search allows you to perform field searches. The fields that are available for searching are:
- title
- author
- keywords.
To search a document field, type the name of the field, a colon (:), and the search term with no spaces.
field:term
If you enter a minus sign (–) immediately preceding field, documents that contain the specified term are excluded from the search results. For example, if you enter -field:term, documents that contain the specified term in the specified field are excluded from the results of the search.
If you enter a plus sign (+) immediately proceeding the field search specification, such as +field:term, documents are included in the search results only if the search term is present in the specified field.
Query syntax
The query syntax is very similar to the syntax that normally used on the web. Queries are interpreted according to the following rules:
- Individual search terms are separated by whitespace characters, such as a space, tab, or comma; for example:
child abuse
- Search phrases are entered within double-quotation marks; for example:
child "sexual abuse"
- Exclude terms with the negation operator, minus ( - ), or the NOT operator; for example:
child abuse -sexual
child abuse NOT sexual
- Require a compulsory term with the unary inclusion operator, plus sign (+); in this example, the term sexual must be included:
child abuse +sexual
- Require compulsory terms with the binary inclusion operator AND; in this example, the terms abuse and sexual must be included:
child abuse and sexual
Field searches
You can search fields or zones by specifying name: term, where:
- name is the name of the field or zone
- term is an individual search term or phrase.
For example:
bakery city:"San Francisco" bakery city:Sunnyvale
- Last updated
- 30 May 2007