Using Basic Search

Basic search is the simplest search type. Use it when you only need to find a single word or phrase. (Fig. 1)

Fig. 1: The basic search query form.

To use the basic search form ...

1. Enter a term or phrase in the text box. Multiple words will be treated as a literal string, not separately in an "any word" or "all words" sense. To search for multiple terms in an "any" or "all" sense, use the Boolean search. Use an asterisk with a word stem to find variations on the word (e.g., searching for civ* will match civ, civil, civic, and civilian.). All other punctuation will be ignored. See Searching Tips.
   
   
2. Use the pulldown "Search in" menu to select an area of the text to search within.
   
   
3. To further limit the scope of the search, add words or word phrases in the "Limit to:" boxes and select a bibliographic field (e.g., author, title) from the appropriate field menu.
   
   
4. Click the "search " button to submit the query.

Some collections may have additional search limitation fields, such as date ranges.