Most search queries are simple: users will enter some words and will get results with content containing any of those terms. But what if you need something more complicated?

Searching phrases: if you want results containing a phrase consisting of multiple words, then enclose them in quotes. For example…

This searches for ‘HIV Treatment’ without enclosing quotes, thus returning results containing both ‘HIV’ and ‘Treatment’, where neither word is necessarily subsequent from the other.

 This searches for ‘”HIV Treatment”‘ with enclosing quotes, thus returning results where ‘HIV’ precedes ‘Treatment’ and are separated by a space.

Searching for required words: if you want results with some words to be mandatory in the content, then prepend the word with a “+” sign. For example, this query, ‘HIV +Spread +CROI’, will return results having ‘spread’, ‘CROI’ and maybe ‘HIV’.

Searching while excluding words: if you want results with certain words to NOT be in the content, then prepend the word with a “–” sign. For example, this query, ‘HIV Spread -CROI’, will return results that does not contain ‘CROI’ in its content.

Searching using wildcards: if you want results with partial matches to certain words, then insert a ‘*‘ sign in the word of where guesses should be made. For example, this query, ‘retro*’, will return results containing ‘retrospective’ and ‘retroviral’.