The Trace Web site utilizes the latest version of Swish-e, a powerful, fast and flexible search tool. In order to make the best use of the search engine, look through the tips below to help you refine your search. The content below describes each component of the search form and explains how each option will effect your search results.
Using Search Terms
- AND - The boolean "AND" operator between words is assumed when doing a search; that is, documents will be retrieved that have all the specified words. For example, if you search for "accessible keyboards" it will only return documents that contain both "accessible" and "keyboards."
- OR - The boolean "OR" operator is supported. For example, entering "accessible or keyboards" will return all documents that have either the "accessible" or "keyboards."
- NOT - You can also use the boolean operator "NOT" to eliminate words. For example, entering "design no universal" will return documents that have "design" but do not have "universal."
- Wildcards (*) - The asterisk can be used to truncate a word; for example, the search "comput*" would retrieve documents that have the words "computer", "computing", "computation", etc.
- Punctuation - Search words are split on most punctuation characters. Therefore, if you search for "trace.wisc.edu", you are actually searching for: trace AND wisc AND edu.
- Exact Phrase Search - It is possible to do an exact phrase search by enclosing the phrase inside quotation marks. For example, entering "John Smith" (Use " " to delimit the phrase) - finds documents with the exact phrase "John Smith". You can also combine exact phrase queries with other keywords using AND, OR, or NOT. For example, entering ""John Smith" and staff" searches for documents containing both the phrase "John Smith" and the word "staff".
- Parentheses - In some search engines, parentheses can be utilized to group search terms. This functionality is not currently supported.
Customizing Results
The "Results per page" pulldown menu modifies the number of items that will appear on the results page of a search. The default value is 15, but you can choose any value from the list.