Tips for Searching

To perform a search, enter your search criteria in the search box.

If an advanced search is not used, the search will return documents that contain ANY of the words entered in the search box.

ANY of the Words

This is the default search and it can be chosen on the Advance Search page.

When the search is performed, all documents containing any of the words entered in the search box will be returned.

Example

Enter the following in the search box: jury trial
Click the Search button
The search will return all documents containing either jury OR trial.

All of the Words

To find ALL the words in a document, go to the Advanced Search page and enter the desired words in the "All Words" search box, then click "Start the Search".

When the search is performed, documents containing all of the words will be returned.

Example

Enter the following in the "with all of the words" search box: jury trial
Click the Start the Search button
The search will return documents containing both jury and trial.

Exact Phrase

To search for a phrase in a document, go to the Advanced Search page and enter the phrase in the "with the exact phrase" search box and click "Start the Search".

When the search is performed, all documents containing that exact phrase will be returned.

Without the Words

If a word is placed in the "without the words" on the Advanced Search page, then the search will exclude all pages that contain those words.

Example

Enter the following in the "without the words" search box: jury trial
Click the Start the Search button
The search will not return any documents that contain either the word jury or the word trial.

Wild Card Searches

The wild-card character * (asterisk) may be used to match the prefix of a word or to ignore the middle of something.

Examples:
activat* will find activate, activation, activated, etc.
John*Public will find John Q. Public
456*a*def will find 1-456-789-ABCDEF

Choosing Keywords to Search

For best results, it's important to choose your keywords wisely. Keep these tips in mind:

Make keywords as specific as possible.

Since the search returns web pages that contain all the words in your query, refining or narrowing your search is as simple as adding more words to the search terms you have already entered. Your new query will return a smaller subset of the pages returned on the initial search.

By default, the search returns pages that only include all of your search terms. There is no need to include "and" between terms.

Automatic Exclusion of Common Words

The search ignores common words and characters such as "where" and "how", as well as certain single digits and single letters, because they tend to slow down the search without improving the results.

If a common word is essential to getting the results you want, you can include it by putting a "+" sign in front of it. (Be sure to include a space before the "+" sign.)

Another method for doing this is conducting a phrase search, which simply means putting quotation marks around two or more words. Common words in a phrase search (e.g., "where are you") are included in the search.

Capitalization

The searches are NOT case sensitive. All letters, regardless of how you type them, will be understood as lower case. For example, searches for "washington state", "Washington State", and "wAsHiNgToN sTaTe" will all return the same results.

Returned Results

When results are returned after the search, the default display sorts the returned web pages by "relevance". This is a method used by the search engine to determine the best possible matches for the entered search terms.

Alternatively, on most advanced search pages there is an option to return the resulting web pages in DATE order.

The default number of web pages returned by the search is 10; this number can not be changed.