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The Educator's Reference Desk Search Help - The Basics
The more words you include in the search box, the better your results will be. Just type the words that describe what you are looking for in the box, use the pull-down menus as described below, and click search.
Click Here for Quick Summary of Search Commands
Using the search options |
| Action |
Function |
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| must contain |
Indicates that search terms must appear in the results. |
| should contain |
Indicates that search terms should appear in the results, though they are not required. |
Field |
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| All Fields |
Searches for the term anywhere in the page. |
| By Title |
Searches for the term in the title only. |
| By Description |
Searches for the term in the narrative description. |
| By Category |
Searches for the term in the Educator's Reference Desk Category
(Browse an alphabetical list of Educator's Reference Desk Categories.) |
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Search term formats
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| the phrase |
A phrase is a string of words that must appear next to each other in order to have a certain meaning.
Example: student financial aid
In order to have student financial aid returned in the search results, phrase must be selected. Otherwise, the search engine will treat these as three individual words, and the search results will contain student financial aid as well as any or all of the words student, financial, and aid, though not in any particular order. |
| the word(s) |
Searches for your search term(s) as separate words in the body of the text. For example, if you typed in assessment rubrics, you would receive pages containing the word assessment or the word rubrics. |
Quick Reference to Syntax
Take a look at this chart for a quick overview of the commands supported by our search engine.
Operator |
Action |
Example |
Appropriate capitalization |
Indicates proper nouns |
Howard Gardner |
Plus sign (+) |
Requires a word or phrase |
+television +effects |
Minus sign (-) |
Ranks search terms lower |
"school safety" -violence |
Comma (,) |
Separates phrases or proper names (OR) |
WebQuest, French |
Pipe (|) Located near the backspace key on many keyboards |
Narrows your search by searching within results, or 'nesting' searches |
"financial aid"|scholarships Looks for pages containing the word "scholarships" only within pages that contain the phrase "financial aid" |
For more in-depth searching assistance along with a
description of advanced search features, please visit our searching help
reference pages:More Search
Help
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