Follow these links for:
Using the Search Screen
General Searching Tips
A List of Search Commands and Search Operators

Using the Search Screen

Keyword

Enter into the keyword input box the word(s) or phrase(s) that you wish to search for. The default search searches for your word or phrase in the CQ Researcher texts, titles, and index. You can deselect any of these three items to narrow your search to any combination of the three.

The word or phrase that you search for will be highlighted in the document when retrieved. Additionally, each section of the issue that contains your search terms will be indicated by blue text.

Date

You can narrow a search by date or date range. Using the From and To option, you can limit your search to only those CQ Researcher issues published within a certain date range. Using the Specific Date option, you can search for issues published on a specific date. And using the No Older Than option, you can search for issues from a specific date to the present. The default search does not put any limitations based on date.

Searching for Entire Issues or Specific Sections

This Web site enables you to search for entire issues of The CQ Researcher or for specific sections. If the Search Entire Issue option is used, results are returned listing the name of the issue, and the link brings you to that issue's abstract, which in turn links to all other sections of that issue. If you choose to search for specific sections, the Web site will use your other search criteria to search only on specific sections of The CQ Researcher. Results will display the name of the issues as well as the section(s) that meet your search criteria. The link from the search results page will bring you to the specific section, and from there you will still be able link to the other sections of that particular CQ Researcher issue. The default is to search for entire issues.

Sorting your Search Results

You may elect to view your results by Relevancy, by Date, or Alphabetically by Title. By default, your results are returned to you in relevancy order. To change, click on the down arrow in the box titled Sort Results By and make your selection.

Viewing your Search Results

You may also determine how many search results you want to view at one time. The default is 30, but you can choose as few as 5 results per screen or as many as 30.

General Searching Tips

Use specific words instead of general ones. For example, a search for "global warming" will return fewer and more targeted results than will a search for "warming."

Use "and," "or," "the" only if you're searching for phrases containing these words, such as "Banking and Finance". If you get too many results, try your search without them. To search for documents containing the words Banking and Finance, enter the terms as Banking Finance (without the and). See Advanced searching tips and the list of search commands and search operators for more help on constructing search syntax.

Use quotation marks around a phrase to search for an exact match of those words in sequence. For example, to find the words Affirmative Action in that order, enter the terms with quotation marks, "Affirmative Action". Without the quotation marks, you may end up with results containing the words "affirmative" and "action" in other contexts.

Use "Not" to narrow your search: If you enter alcohol not driving, your search will return only those documents that include the word alcohol and exclude the word driving.

Use a wildcard (*) for multiple endings: By typing an * (asterisk symbol) at the end of a word, you can search for items with multiple endings. For example: work* will find results for work, worker, workers, workplace, and working.

A List of Search Commands and Search Operators

To find one word and another word	Separate the words with a space or separate with "and"	children divorce; children and divorce
To find words in an exact sequence	Use quotation marks	"children and divorce"
To find one word or another word	Separate terms with "or"	Clinton or Bush
To find one word but not another	Separate terms with "not"	Clinton not Bush
To find any words starting with a specific sequence of letters	Use the asterisk symbol (*)	work*
To find any character in a word	Use the ? symbol	wom?n will find woman, women
To find words within x number of words of each other	Separate words with a "w" and a slash mark (/) and the number of words which can occur between the search terms	electoral w/10 college will find the words "electoral" and "college" within 10 words of each other