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| Single word |
statistics
Type a single word to find documents containing that word. |
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Multiple words
or phrases |
exports, imports, trade
separate words with a comma to find documents containing any of the words. Equivalent to a boolean OR search (exports or imports or trade)
debt relief
by default, search results will return documents in the following order:
exact phrase (debt relief) at the top
AND matches (debt and relief)
"debt and relief"
when using quotes around a phrase, search results will return exact phrase of these three words)
Article IV consultation with Argentina
A phrase is a grouping of two or more words that occur in a specific order. AND is the default for multi-word searches but documents containing the exact phrase will be returned at the top. |
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| Using quotes |
"standards and codes"
Enclose a phrase in double quotation marks to find documents containing instances of the exact string only. The given phrase must appear in documents together and in the exact order. |
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| Wildcard ? |
globali?ation
Use a question mark to denote a single letter. The example search will find documents containing "globalization" as well as "globalisation". |
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| Wildcard * |
*ful
ful*
*ful*
Use an asterisk to denote any combination of letters. For example,
*ful would find documents containing "successful"; ful* would
find documents containing "fulfill", and *ful * would
find "successfully". |
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Using
AND, OR
NOT operators
(can be typed in upper or lower
case) |
AND
cooperation AND stability
cooperation and stability
This search will return documents containing both "cooperation" and "stability".
OR
cooperation OR stability
cooperation or stability
This search will return documents containing either "cooperation" or "stability". Documents containing both words will also be found.
NOT
cooperation NOT stability
cooperation not stability
This search will return documents containing "cooperation", but no documents containing "stability" will be retrieved. |
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Using
parentheses |
()
Parentheses may be used to change the order of the Boolean operators by searching for concept enclosed in the parenthesis first, resulting in a more advanced search strategy.
(international OR free) AND Trade
The search engine first looks for documents with either "international" or "free" in the text, then looks at those documents containing the word "trade".
Debt AND (restructuring NOT relief)
The search engine first looks for documents with "restructuring", but no documents containing the word "relief". Last, it retrieves from the set of documents only the ones containing the word "debt".
Tips:
Always use the Boolean operator "AND" before or after the parentheses as shown.
Do not use too many terms at once. Your search could be too specific thereby retrieving nothing.
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