While the search engine will do its best to find what you are looking for even if words are spelled incorrectly, it's always best to make sure the words are spelled correctly.
Search Tips
Using two or more words in your search query will produce better, more relevant results than one generic word. For example, searching for forward capacity market will return far better results than searching for market. Remember, the more specific your query is, the better your results will be.
Acronyms do not give the search engine as much to work with as spelling out the words does. For example, operational reports will return better results that OR (in fact OR will return no results as it is a Boolean operator).
Placing quotes around a phrase tells the search engine to return results where those words fall in that exact order. For example, searching for "forward capacity market" will return results where the exact phrase forward capacity market appears. Without quotes the results will include those three words but not necessarily in the correct order and not necessarily next to each other.
Boolean operators allow you to further refine your search results. For example, searching for transmission AND studies will return results where both the word transmission and studies appear on a page. The Boolean operators the search engine recognizes are:
- AND - Searches both words and displays results where only both are present (e.g. transmission AND studies)
- NOT - Excludes word following NOT operator from query and displays results where preceding word(s) are present without the excluded word (e.g. transmission NOT studies)
- OR - Searches both words and displays results where either is present (e.g. transmission OR studies)
- BEFORE - Displays results where first search word appears before second search word (e.g. transmission BEFORE studies)
- AFTER - Displays results where first search word appears after second search word (e.g. studies AFTER transmission)
Note: Boolean operators must be capitalized.
Wildcards expand the number of matches for a particular request. For example, searching for regula* will find the words regulatory, regulation and any other word that starts with regula. The wildcards the search engine recognizes are:
- * - matches any number of characters before or after or within a word (e.g. regula*)
- ? - matches any one character before or after or within a word (e.g. wom?n)
Still not finding what your looking for? Advanced search will allow you to search archived materials (prior to March 1, 2003) as well as give you the option to limit your search to a specific category. Keep in mind you can still use any of the tips above with advanced search to further optimize your results.
