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Quick Guides – Using Search Operators in Justis 5

Searches using Justis 5 are controlled by a flexible system of searching tools known as operators. This sheet describes the different operators, and looks at ways to use them to narrow or widen a search. Operators can be in either upper case or lower case.


Boolean operators

ANDThe AND operator helps you to make your query more precise. When you use it, only documents that contain all of the terms separated by AND will be retrieved. For example, the query fishing AND united kingdom will only retrieve documents that contain both the word 'fishing' and the phrase 'united kingdom'.
ORThe OR operator helps you to search for related words. For example, the query murder OR manslaughter will find documents referring to either 'murder' or 'manslaughter' or both.
NOTThe NOT operator allows you to exclude documents that contain a particular word or phrase. For example, packaging NOT plastic finds documents that refer to 'packaging' but excludes any that refer to 'plastic'. This operator must be used with care, because a document may specify that it does not contain information on a specific topic. However, it can be used safely with fields that have a controlled vocabulary, for example to exclude particular document types.

Boolean operators can not only be used in free text queries, but also in queries that specify fields:

Date_Judge[denning] AND Catchwords[tenan*]

CPVCODE[33100000] NOT DOCTYPE[7]

Wild cards

Wild cards provide an easy way to include related words in your query, or to allow for variations in spelling.

*The asterisk wild card is used to represent any number (including zero) of characters. It can be used at the start or end of a word, or in the middle. You can use more than one within a word. Use it with care, for example form* will find not just 'form' or 'forms', but several other words as well. You can use the Word Index (see the on-screen Help) to select only the words you want from a list of those that have a common stem.
?The question mark wild card is used to represent any single character, at any position in a word. You can use more than one within a word. For example, formali?e will find documents containing 'formalise' or 'formalize' or both versions.
-The hyphen wild card is useful for terms that can be written as one word or two words (or more than two words) or hyphenated. Type a hyphen (with no spaces) between the two words, and all three possibilities will be searched for. For example data-base will find documents containing 'data base', 'database' or 'data-base', or any combination of these terms.

Parentheses

Parentheses define the logical order in which a multiple-term query is interpreted. For example, the following query will find documents concerning both aunts and children:

aunt* AND (child* OR son OR sons OR daughter*)

Without the parentheses, many irrelevant documents about sons or daughters that were not concerned with aunts would be retrieved, because the query would be interpreted as:

(aunt* AND child*) OR son OR sons OR daughter*

Date operators

Some JUSTIS databases feature date range searching. This lets you specify that hits must contain a range of dates in certain fields.

AFTER 03/12/1996means documents must be dated after 3 December 1996.
BEFORE 19950719means documents must be dated before 19 July 1995.
ON 3 Sep 1994means documents must be dated 3 September 1994.
FROM 1996 TO 1997means documents must have been published in 1996 or 1997.

Most databases contain at least one field that can be searched for a range of dates, either a full date or a year. Consult the on-screen Help for the fields in a particular database for details of the formats that are supported.

Proximity operators

Proximity operators can be regarded as more precise forms of the AND operator. They ensure that retrieved documents must not only contain both terms, but that the terms must be within a specified number of characters of each other. Spaces are ignored when counting characters, but punctuation marks are included.

A WITHIN 25 OF Bmeans A must be no more than 25 characters away from B.
A WITHIN 10 BEFORE Bmeans A must be before B, and no more than 10 characters away.
A WITHIN 10 AFTER Bmeans A must be after B, and no more than 10 characters away.
A NEAR Buses a fixed distance of 40 characters. It is the equivalent of A WITHIN 40 OF B but is quicker to type.

In the English language 25 characters is approximately 5 words.

Proximity operators can be very useful when searching European databases for phrases. Phrases such as product liability may have been translated as liability for the product. By using a query such as product NEAR liability you can make sure both forms of the phrase are found.

Quotation marks

If you try to search for a phrase that includes a word that is an operator, the operator will appear in blue and your search will not work properly. You need to enclose the phrase in double quotation marks, for example "health and safety" or "week before Christmas", so that the operator does not appear in blue.

Hints and Tips

Blue words

Justis 5 displays field names and operators within your queries in blue. If a word for which you wish to search appears in blue, then you must enclose the phrase in double quotation marks, for example:

"duty of care"

"health and safety"

The words will then appear in black and the query will work as intended.

Using symbols

Some of the operators can be represented by symbols, which work in exactly the same way as the operators themselves.

AND&
OR|
NOT!
AFTER>
BEFORE<
ON=
WITHIN OFW/

Using symbols instead of words can make entering queries quicker and simpler.

What does "Boolean" mean?

It comes from the surname of George Boole, the mathematician who developed the and/or/not system of relationships between entities.

Further Information

The printed Justis 5 User Manual and the Justis 5 on-screen Help contain extensive information on all of the subjects covered here, plus many more aspects of Justis 5.


4th October 2006