Construct a Search Query
Boolean Searching in Advanced Search, Basic Search, Search Results, and Search History.

There are several ways to construct a complex search using the text entry box. This approach requires some familiarity with the WilsonWeb search syntax, search operators, and the abbreviations for fields in the HW Wilson databases. The advantage is that you can formulate a very specific and narrow search that is less dependent on relevancy ranking to return focused results.

Boolean Searching using WilsonWeb’s unique search syntax, search operators, and field abbreviations. Refer to Search/Boolean Operators for a complete list of possible operators for conducting a complex structured search using the Verity search engine syntax.

Note: The operators and, or, not, and in do not require brackets. For example, on the search screens, the following Boolean searches are possible:

painters or sculptors and italy
(painters or sculptors) and italy — nested search

Bound Phrase Searching is possible by enclosing the phrase being searched in quotation marks (""). There are slight differences in how the Bound Phrase search is conducted on the Advanced Search screen or the Basic Search screen. For all searches using quotation marks (except when the All-Smart Search and Author search field is selected on the Advanced Search screen), in addition to creating a bound phrase, the phrase enclosed turns off stemming of the words. Stemming for the All-Smart Search and Author searches must be turned off in the Administrator's Module on the Default settings page.

Example — "Greek tragedy"

• Basic Search screen Bound Phrase searching (Recommended)

Enclose your search phrase in quotation marks to retrieve only hits for that precise phrase.

• Advanced Search screen Bound Phrase searching

Enclose your search phrase in quotation marks to retrieve only hits for that precise phrase. It is possible to do a bound phrase search on the Advanced Search screen with any of the individual fields such as Title, Other titles, Abstract, or Full Text selected.

When considering doing a Bound Phrase search with the All-Smart Search query, it is important to remember that the All-Smart Search has unique characteristics. The All-Smart Search automatically does a bound phrase search in the Subject field, regardless of whether or not the user has enclosed the terms in quotation marks, returning the bound phrase near the top of the result set. The distinction in using or not using quotation marks is:

1. When the user's terms are surrounded by quotation marks, in addition to the Subject level search, all other fields (Title, Other titles, Abstract, and Full Text) are searched as a bound phrase, too.
    

2. When the user's terms are not surrounded by quotation marks, the All-Smart Search still begins with a subject level bound phrase search, but the lower ranked fields (Title, Other titles, Abstract, and Full Text) are searched with an All search, which searches for documents with all of the words, but not necessarily bound together in a phrase.

Example — Elimination of stemming.
To eliminate the stemming of individual words (stemming is automatic in WilsonWeb searching), include quotation marks “” around the word.
“painting”
Variations such as paint and painted will not be included in the search results.

Example — Bound Phrase using quotation marks.
When searching the phrase hudson river watershed, include quotation marks. This is a bound phrase and prevents stemming of all terms.
"hudson river watershed"

Example — Boolean Search using Verity search engine syntax

To search for a phrase and include stemmed variations of the terms in your results, use the <stem> operator and enclose your phrase in parentheses..
<stem>(hudson river watershed)

Date ranges – to find people born from 1960 to 1962 in a biography database, enter the following into the Basic Search entry box, including the short field for year born byr, greater than and lesser than brackets, and = signs:
byr >= 1960 and byr <= 1962

Example — Narrow Your Search with AND Searching
To find records that contain every element included in the search and ranked for relevance, enter the terms in the Basic Search entry box and use the and operator.
Microsoft and Netscape and Yahoo

Example — Broaden Your Search with OR Searching
To find records that contain any of the elements included in the search and ranked for relevance, enter the terms in the Basic Search entry box and use the or operator.

Microsoft or Netscape or Yahoo