The search tools available range from the detailed and subject-oriented Propædia, to the wide-ranging coverage of topics suggested by the Index, to the full-text searches of the Wide Area Information Servers (WAIS) search engine. For best results, you should familiarize yourself with all the search and retrieval conventions covered in this guide.
2. Select the number of titles you want to display on the Hitlist. You may choose to display from 3 to up to 100 titles. Please note that choosing fewer articles will yield quicker results.
3. Select the number of titles for which you wish to see the first paragraph. Viewing the first paragraph will give you a sense of the context of the article so you can decide if the reference has the information you are looking for.
4. In the Query Box, type your query in the form of a word, phrase, or question and select Search or press Enter. You will see a Windows hourglass while the search engine searches the database for the answer to your query. When the search is complete, references will be posted in order of relevance.
Note: Depending on your query, the number of articles selected, whether you are viewing first paragraphs, and the speed of your PC, search times will vary.
You can also see more articles by selecting including more articles, which will return a longer list of articles in response to your query. You can also refine your search by selecting restricting the search. This feature tells the computer to return only those articles that contain all of the words used in the original query.
Once you have retrieved your list, scan the list of articles and select those that are of interest. You can access individual articles by clicking on the hotlink.
Using natural-language searches, you simply pose a query in the form of a word, phrase, or question and let Britannica CD search the database and retrieve articles on the subject. When you conduct an article search, you are searching the full text of Britannica CD. Searching the text allows for a wide-ranging, open-ended search that is not limited by space constraints or the logical connections of an index. You may combine unlikely terms in a search, such as spider Australia, two words you wouldn't find together in an entry head in an index.
Enter your query in natural language, such as a simple word, a phrase, or a more complex question. For example, if you type what is the third longest river in the world?, the search engine finds articles containing the words "third", "longest", "river", and "world."
Hits are ranked by relevance so that the most important references get posted at the top of the list.
You can also use natural-language searching to query the Index and the Dictionary databases. See the table below for more specific examples.
| Natural Language Queries | Searches for Articles with these Words |
|---|---|
| where did winston churchill give the iron curtain speech? | winston churchill iron curtain speech |
| third longest river in the world | third longest river world |
| did alexander pope do a translation of the iliad? | alexander pope translation iliad |
| what is the great chain of being? | great chain |
| who was capability brown? | capability brown |
| great artesian basin | great artesian basin |
| who was in the movie "citizen kane"? | movie citizen kane |
| American painters in the abstract expressionism movement | american painter abstract expressionism movement |
To perform a Boolean search, simply type the words for which you want to search, separated by the operators in capital letters. For example:
ADJ (Adjacent) can be a powerful tool for finding specific names and phrases. For example, United ADJ Nations returns articles containing the phrase United Nations and skips those that may contain United States or United Kingdom. This search looks for words that appear in the specified order. For more examples of Boolean searches, see the table below.
Note: ADJ finds hits that are adjacent within 15 characters. For example, searching on "Harry ADJ Truman" finds Harry S. Truman.
| Boolean Operator | Example | Search Will Look for Articles Which Contain: |
|---|---|---|
| AND | pope AND iliad | both "pope" and "iliad" |
| ADJ | citizen ADJ kane | the phrase "citizen kane" |
| NOT | nero NOT roman | "nero" but not "roman" |
| OR | color OR colour | either or both of these terms |
| AND/OR | etruscan AND (language OR alphabet) | "etruscan" and "language" or "etruscan" and "alphabet" |
| ADJ/NOT | (red ADJ deer) NOT river | the phrase "red deer" but not the word "river" |
| OR/AND | (lancelot OR capability) AND brown | "lancelot" and "brown" or "capability" and "brown" |
| ADJ/ADJ | great ADJ artesian ADJ basin | the phrase "great artesian basin" |
| OR/AND/ADJ | (american OR U.S.) AND (abstract ADJ expressionis*) | any phrase "abstract expressionis*" that also includes either "american" or "U.S." |
| ADJ/AND | (great ADJ chain) AND being | "being" is a stopword; no articles will be found |
Capital letters can be used to refine search results. This technique is recommended for retrieval of terms where case sensitivity makes a difference. For example, let's assume that you want to retrieve references to the acronym AIDS. A search of lowercase aids will locate references on AIDS, but will also retrieve economic and foreign aid. Rekeying the query in uppercase will limit the search to AIDS.
Case sensitivity can also be important in proper names searches. When a term is used both as a proper name and a general term, you may want only to retrieve references to the proper name. For example, let's say you are interested in Jonathan Swift. A search using lowercase swift finds references to a moth and birds, as well as people by this name. Changing the search term to Swift eliminates the lowercase form of "swift" from the search results.
IMPORTANT NOTE: Never use all capital letters in a query unless retrieving acronyms such as UNESCO or using a Boolean operator (ADJ, AND, OR, NOT).
In contrast, note that stopwords are recognized as keywords in the Index Search. If you do an Index search on a specific title, such as "all's well that end's well," all words will be retrieved. In addition, using a stopword in a Boolean search will result in no hits. To confirm this, you can check the Query Report at the bottom of the hitlist.