Search Help

Initiating a keyword search

To search documents containing specific words simply type into the search field the keyword(s) (such as "Hatch Act"), that describe what you're looking for and then press the Submit button to initiate the search. The results of the search will then be displayed as a numbered list of document records which include the document title, a short description, the document web address (url), the number of keywords matched (number of times keyword(s) found in document), the keyword score (percentage of matching characters in a document), the date that the document was last updated and the document size. The keyword term(s) will also be highlighted in the document title and description of the results. Example:

1. Hatch Act for Federal Employees
...Disclosures Political Activity (Hatch Act) State and Local Employees OSC ...
...Links Employment Opportunities Hatch Act for Federal Employees The Hatch ...
...that significantly amended the Hatch Act as it applies to federal and D.C. ...
...explain the application of the Hatch Act. Copies of the booklets and ...
...the rules and regulations of the Hatch Act. Permitted/Prohibited Activities ...
http://www.osc.gov/ha_fed.htm
Matches: 16   Score: 1.32   Last Updated: Mar 12, 2003   File Size: 47KB

To display a document containing the keyword(s) searched select the document title hyperlink of the corresponding search results record.  

Search for exact phrases (use quotation marks)

If you are searching for exact phases such as Hatch Act, use double quotes around the terms to search them as a complete phrase rather than as separate words. Example: 

     "Hatch Act" 

This forces the search engine to only return documents that contain the exact words "Hatch Act". This result set is different from the result set if you do not use quotes. 

Force words to appear in search results (put a + in front of them)

To make sure the search engine finds documents that contain certain words, regardless of whether they are in an exact phrase, put a plus sign (+) in front of the words you absolutely want to be displayed. For example, suppose you are only interested in locating the term federal in documents containing the keyword regulations you could type:

     "regulations +federal"

This search tells the engine to make sure to include the term federal in any results that it displays for documents containing the word regulations. Additionally, you may select the + checkbox (located next to the Submit button on the Search Form) to automatically add a plus sign in front of all terms/phrases. 

Exclude words from displaying in search results (put a - in front of them)

Conversely, you can force the search engine to exclude documents containing certain words by putting a minus sign (-) in front of them.  Suppose you want to search for advisories but only those documents containing the term federal but not state. You could type: 

     "advisories +federal -state"

This tells the engine to exclude documents from the search results that contain the word state in the title or in the main description. 

Searching can be expanded with a wildcard (*)

Adding a * to the end of a term will match all endings. For example: 'test*' will match 'tests' 'tested' 'testing' etc. Stop-terms (common terms such as "a, it, and, the, that..." ) are included in wildcard searches.

Weighted scores

Weights can be applied to keyword(s) by adding <2-10000> in front of terms or phrases.  

The query above will weight scores 100 and 500 times greater for documents containing 'term' and 'a phrase', respectively. The scores for documents containing only 'none' will remain unchanged. The weight must be in the range of 2-10000. The results will be sorted by weighted scores.

Advanced Search Options

The search engine provides several optional parameters which you can select to more closely define your search.

  • Search Within Results: This option is only available on the search results page after conducting an initial search.  The search engine will search for additional keyword(s) only within the result records that have been returned by an initial search. 
  • Case Sensitive: Distinguishes between upper and lower case characters.
  • Whole Words Only: Ensures that keyword(s) being searched are not contained within or are part of other words (example: a search for "Hatch Act"will not yield "Activity").
  • Include Stop Terms: Includes common terms such as "a, it, and, the, that..." as part of the search.  by default the search engine will ignore these terms. 
  • Sort by: The search results are sorted in descending order by the selected search option.  The options are Matches (default selection), Scores, Dates, Sizes. 
  • Display: Selects the number of result records that are displayed per page.