SEARCH OPTIONS
 
 

REFINING YOUR SEARCHES

 Searching for Phrases
Use quotation marks to look for a phrase, name or concept. For example, if you enter: 
our system will search for the exact name "William Safire."

Excluding Words
Use not to refine your search.  For example, if you're looking for articles about Microsoft, but you're not interested in articles about the antitrust trial, enter:

which will retrieve articles containing the word Microsoft but not the word trial. 

Not Sure What You're Looking For?
You can also use or if you're looking for several different concepts, or if you're not sure how a word might appear in the archives. For example:

would search for articles where either of these places is mentioned. 

Not Sure of a Name or Spelling?
Using a * looks for words that contain a string of characters in any position. For example, searching for 

will return any article containing microscope, microcomputer, etc.). 

Complex Searches
Parentheses can be useful to group words together and narrow your search results. For example, if you started searching for

and you received too many articles about Mark McGwire's breaking Roger Maris's home run record, you could modify your search, using parentheses, to: