What are the general rules for searching?
Last updated on March 30, 2026
This page provides an overview of how the Engineering Village search features work. Select a topic of interest below to learn more.
Author search provides the ability for the user to search for Compendex records via a listing of authors' profiles while Affiliation search allows users to search for Compendex records via a listing of the profiles created from the authors' affiliations.
Stemming determines the suffixes of words and allows you to search for the term as entered, the root word, and other words formed with other possible suffixes. For example, if you enter the term controllers, you get results for the following:
- controllers
- control
- controlling
- controlled
- controls
Autostemming provides you with much broader search results as the system stems all search terms except for author names and words in double quotation marks and/or curly braces. You do not need to search for all the variations of the terms in your search query as they are provided in the results.
The default setting for autostemming is enabled for Quick searches and disabled for Expert searches.
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Autostemming and Proximity Operator | Autostemming can be used with the NEAR and ONEAR proximity operators since all of the terms are automatically stemmed.
For example, electric NEAR/2 energy finds the following results:
For example, electric ONEAR/2 energy finds the following results:
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Autostemming and spelling variations | Autostemming does not find variants between British and American spellings.
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Turn off or turn on Autostemming |
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Improve stemming precision | To improve the precision of stemming results, you can apply stemming to specific terms in your search query rather than to allow the autostemming feature to stem all terms except author names and words in double quotation marks and/or curly braces.
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Note: You cannot use the NEAR or ONEAR proximity operators with stemming unless all the terms are stemmed. You can use manual stemming with the proximity operator if both search terms adjacent to the NEAR or ONEAR operators are stemmed. If the dollar ($) sign is not entered before each search term adjacent to the NEAR or ONEAR operators, then the search engine will not apply stemming to any of the search terms in the proximity search query.
Examples:
$solar NEAR/1 $electric NEAR/1 $energy
$solar ONEAR/1 $electric ONEAR/1 $energy
will produce stemmed search results because all search terms adjacent to the NEAR and ONEAR operators are preceded with a $ sign.
However, the following examples will not produce stemmed search results because only one search term is preceded by a $ sign.
$control NEAR/3 drug
$control ONEAR/3 drug
‘AutoSuggest’ helps engineering researchers find terms quickly by presenting a list of suggested terms from the most trusted engineering thesaurus available, Ei Thesaurus. When entering a search term from the Document results list after running a Quick search query, ‘AutoSuggest’ provides a list of words or phrases in alphabetical order which match what you are typing. If a word matches the term you are interested in searching, you can then select the word or phrase to include in your search.
‘AutoSuggest’ features include the following:
- The ‘AutoSuggest’ feature begins after the third character is entered and continues to refine as letters are typed.
- A list of suggested words and phrases are presented in an alphabetical order based upon the first characters entered into the search box.
- The list of suggested words is continuously updated based upon the user's input into the search box.
- A maximum of eleven suggestions are presented within an ‘AutoSuggest’ list.
- Sometimes one or more ‘Recommended terms’ suggestions may appear in the display depending upon the user's input.
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Origin of AutoSuggest terms | The ‘AutoSuggest’ feature is powered by the 20,000 preferred and non-preferred terms from the Ei Thesaurus. The Ei Thesaurus is an important and unique feature to Engineering Village because it provides the taxonomy and classifications used for categorizing over one million engineering records each year. Engineering researchers rely on these categorizations, and on the Ei Thesaurus itself, when searching for articles, papers, and conferences that are directly relevant to their research. |
Turn on or turn off AutoSuggest | The default setting for the ‘AutoSuggest’ feature is enabled. From the Document results list after running a Quick search query, you may turn off this feature in the following ways:
After disabling this feature, click ‘Turn on AutoSuggest’ beneath the search box(es) to enable this feature. |
Boolean operators allow you to combine terms using AND, OR, or NOT in Quick and Expert searches.
Boolean operators will follow the precedence order listed below.
- NOT: Will have the highest precedence. Use this operator to eliminate terms from a search.
- AND: Will have the second highest precedence. Results contain all specified terms. Combine terms using this operator to narrow the scope of a search.
- OR: Will have the lowest precedence. Results contain any specified term. Combine terms using this operator to broaden a search or to allow for variant spellings.
Boolean operators in Quick search
Terms are searched according to the Boolean operator precedence order. Refer to the examples below.
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a AND b OR c | (a AND b) OR c |
a OR b AND c | a OR (b AND c) |
a AND b NOT c | a AND (b NOT c) |
a OR b NOT c | a OR (b NOT c) |
Boolean operators in Expert search
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metal OR alloy AND ductile | (metal OR (alloy AND ductile)) |
"artificial intelligence" OR AI AND "deep learning" NOT "machine learning" | "artificial intelligence" OR (AI AND ("deep learning" NOT "machine learning")) |
- You can combine more terms within your search using the Expert search or, alternately, use the Combine previous searches feature in Search history.
In Expert search, the search terms are linked using Boolean operators and are searched according to the precedence order previously listed. Refer to the examples below.
Examples:
Smith, John WN AU AND Wright University WN AF
"Rapid transit" WN TI OR "light rail" WN TI AND signals WN TI
To broaden a search, combine terms using OR (results contain any specified term).
Example:
"rapid transit" OR "light rail" OR subways
To narrow the scope of a search, combine terms using AND (results contain all specified terms).
Example:
prosthetics AND biocontrol
To eliminate terms from a search, use the NOT operator. A search for mining might be done as follows:
Example:
(mines OR mining) WN KY NOT "data mining" WN KY
In Expert search, you can use parentheses to specify the order of operation. Terms and operators within the parentheses are executed before terms and operations outside the parentheses. Multiple sets of parentheses can be used in order to "nest" the search queries.
Example:
(International Space Station OR Mir) AND gravitational effects AND (French WN LA OR German WN LA OR English WN LA)
Results from this search will contain either International Space Station OR MIR, plus all the records will contain gravitational effects. All of the results will be in French, German, or English.
- If you do not use parentheses to specify the order of operation, then the operations will be performed according to the Boolean operator precedence order.
- If you enter a phrase without double quotation marks, braces, or parentheses, AND is assumed.
The Expert search form and the Document results list after running a Quick search query provide access to various indexes you can use in your searches. The ‘Browse indexes’ box has a list of several indexes from which to choose. The indexes listed in the ‘Browse indexes’ box depend on the database(s) you have selected.
Note: On rare occasions, it is possible to not see any indexes to browse depending upon the database(s) that you have selected. In these cases, select a different database combination in order to see the ‘Browse index’ feature.
Follow these steps to use a Browse index:
From the Expert search form or the Document results list after running a Quick search query, select one or more databases from the Databases tab.
Note: Refer to the Content sources FAQ for a brief description of all the databases.
- From the ‘Browse indexes’ tab, select an index by clicking it. The selected index page opens. The ‘Selected index’ name displays at the top right side of the index page.
- Display search terms from the index in one of the following ways:
- If available, click the first letter(s) from the top two rows, OR
- Type the first few letters of the term in the ‘Search for:’ box at the top of the page.
- Click ‘Search index’ or ‘Enter’ to see the page that contains the first letters that you typed into the ‘Search for:’ box.
- Select the checkbox of the search term (using 'Next page' if necessary).
To have a second index term pasted from the index with either a Boolean AND or OR connecting it to the first term, click the AND or OR radio button in the top portion of the Browse index page and then select the term. Repeat this for a third index term, if desired. For more information, refer to Boolean operators.
Note: Each time you run a search query on at least two databases and use one or more Browse indexes, there is a risk of removing a database from the search. Therefore, be sure to note the databases listed after each term in each Browse index.
- Navigate to additional index terms (as needed) by using the Next page and Previous page feature.
- To switch to another index, select it from the ‘Selected index’ dropdown list at the top right side of the index box.
- Click the ‘X’ to return to the Expert search form or the Document results list after running a Quick search query.
- In Quick search, click ‘Add search field’ to display additional fields for searching or enter additional search terms in Expert search if desired.
- Click the magnifying glass icon to run your search.
Note: Refer to the Browse indexes FAQ for detailed descriptions of the 12 Browse indexes in Engineering Village:
Author Affiliation/Patent Assignee
Author/Inventor
Classification code
Controlled term
Discipline
Document type
ICS code
IPC code
Language
Publisher
Source title
Treatment
You can search for documents by publication year range. Ensure that there are no spaces between the hyphen and the years as shown in the examples below.
Examples:
To search for documents with the search term ‘paper’ located in the ABSTRACT field for the publication years 2021 through 2024:
(paper WN AB and 2021-2024 WN YR)
To search for documents with the search term ‘vaccines’ located in the TITLE field for the publication years 2000 through 2025:
(vaccines WN TI) and (2000-2025 WN YR)
Refer to the Wildcards and Truncation section of this FAQ for date searches using a wildcard.
To guarantee that the results for a phrase in a search query are an exact match, use curly braces or double quotation marks.
Examples:
{International Space Station}
"solar energy"
{A343/A343M-14(2019)}
Note: Engineering Village will transform “smart” (curly) quotation marks to "standard" (straight) quotation marks to ensure search query consistency. If you enter your search terms directly into a Quick or Expert search form, the double quotation marks will be displayed as standard quotation marks. If you paste search terms from another source that are enclosed with “smart” quotation marks, (e.g., “computer graphics”), they will be transformed to "standard" quotation marks (e.g., "computer graphics") after you click ‘Search’ or the magnifying glass icon to run your search query.
When conducting an exact search, use the backslash character (\) before the beginning and ending double quotation marks to ‘escape’ them in a search query.
- If you do not use the backslash character, you will receive a syntax error as the double quotation marks are reserved characters for the Engineering Village search engine.
Examples:
"Nuclear Power Saves the World!"
A "big-data" algorithm for KNN-PLS
To search for these documents, use the backslash as shown below as there are double quotation marks in these titles.
{\"Nuclear Power Saves the World!\"} WN TI
"A \"big-data\" algorithm for KNN-PLS" WN TI
Proximity /NEAR operator vs. exact phrase searches
Use the NEAR proximity operator to search for documents with terms that are adjacent or near to each other in any order.
Use the ONEAR proximity operator to search for documents with terms that are adjacent in the order described in the search query.
Use exact phrase searches to find documents that contain the precise search terms in the exact order needed for your search query.
Refer to How do I use the Proximity / NEAR and ONEAR operators for more information about proximity and exact phrase searches.
You must create an account and be signed in to Engineering Village to save searches. Once you save a search, you can view, rerun, modify, change the name, or delete it. You can save a search from two locations in Engineering Village.
Follow these steps to save a search from the Search results page:
- Run a Quick or Expert search. The Document results list displays beneath the search query.
- Above the search results click ‘Save search.’ The ‘Save search’ window opens.
- Enter a name for your search query.
- Click ‘Save search.’ A message displays confirming that your search has been saved.
- You may click the ‘Alerts and Saved searches’ page link in the confirmation message to view or edit your saved searches.
- The ‘Save search’ button changes to ‘Remove search’ as additional confirmation that your search query has been saved.
Follow these steps to save a search from Search history:
- Run a Quick or Expert search. The Document results list displays beneath the search query.
- Click ‘Search history’ in the main navigation bar at the top of the Engineering Village page. The ‘Recent results’ window opens and displays your most recent five search results.
- Click ‘View all results.’ The ‘Search history on Engineering Village’ page opens.
- Locate the row(s) containing the search(es) you want to save.
- From the ‘Save search’ column, select the checkbox for each search query that you want to save.
The search query now appears at the top of the ‘Alerts and Saved Searches’ page. You can have a total of 260 saved searches and email alerts at once.
The Engineering Village application supports a search query string length up to 15,000 characters (including spaces).
Alphanumeric characters [a-z], [A-Z], and [0-9] are processed as search input.
Some punctuation characters (colon, equal sign, forward slash, period, plus sign, underscore) are ignored by the search engine.
- To include these punctuation characters in the search query, enclose all search terms (including these characters and parentheses if present) in curly braces { } or double quotation marks " " .
- The hyphen is sometimes ignored by the search engine and is not ignored in other instances depending upon the situation.
- Hyphens are significant and are not ignored when running a regular search with wildcards/truncation.
- Hyphens are also significant and are not ignored when searching the AUTHOR (‘AU’), FIRST AUTHOR (‘FIRSTAU’) and AFFILIATION (‘AF’) fields in exact searches.
The special characters ?, *, $ are operators and have special meanings in the Engineering Village search syntax.
Refer to the following sections of this FAQ for further information:
- Asterisk (*) and question mark (?) - Wildcards and truncation
- Dollar sign ($) - Autostemming
- Parentheses ( ) - Boolean operators and Exact phrase searches
- Double quotation marks (" ") and curly braces { } - Exact phrase searches
Examples:
{M/G/I}
"BS ISO/IEC/IEEE 8802-1CM:2019"
{A343/A343M-14(2019)}
"A0597_A0597M-14R20"
{1711.2-2019}
"BS EN 13480-5:2017+A1:2019"
{n=4}
"self-drive*"
‘Spellcheck’ looks for misspelled search terms in users' search queries based upon a dictionary maintained by the Engineering Village search engine. The search engine finds these misspelled terms and provides alternate keywords or terms if there are few results from these search queries.
The question ‘Are you searching for:’ followed by the alternate search query suggestion in parentheses displays beneath the ‘No results were found’ message or directly above the search results on your screen. The alternate search query contains a link to rerun this search with the suggested search query.
‘Spellcheck’ is available for both Quick and Expert searches and is case insensitive.
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{pollynomial wn ALL} | Are you searching for: {polynomial WN ALL}? |
"Circut Theory" wn TI | Are you searching for: "Circuit Theory" WN TI? |
"string diagramatic" wn AB | Are you searching for: "string diagrammatic" WN AB? |
{deisel engine} wn CV | Are you searching for: {diesel engine} WN CV? |
tsting wn TI | Are you searching for: ((testing) WN TI? |
Stopwords are words that have significance within Engineering Village's search engine, and therefore require special handling to search.
To search for a phrase that contains stop words (AND, OR, NOT, NEAR), place the phrase within curly braces or double quotation marks.
Examples:
{block AND tackle}
"watercraft parts AND equipment"
{NEAR earth objects}
"rocks OR minerals"
{NOT to exceed}
Use wildcards and truncation in Quick and Expert searches to help make your queries more specific.
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Single Character Wildcard (?) | Use a question mark (?) to replace a single character anywhere in a word. Use one question mark for each character that you want to replace. Examples: wom?n finds woman, women t??th finds tooth, teeth, truth, tenth |
Multi-Character Wildcard (*) | Use an asterisk (*) to replace 0 to X number of characters anywhere in a word. Examples: h*emoglobin finds hemoglobin, haemoglobin, hemimethemoglobin sul*ate finds sulfate, sulfonate, sulphate, sulphonate |
Truncation (*) (at ending of search term) | The truncation command (*) retrieves all the words that start with the same letters as the truncated term up to the point that the truncation symbol is used. Examples: comput* finds computers, computing, computerize color* finds color, colormetric, colored, colorimetric, coloring, colorless, coloration, colors, Colorado
To avoid unexpected results, use truncation with care. |
Truncation (*) (at end of year range query) | The truncation command (*) allows users to find the most recent documents by representing the end year in a year range search query in Expert search.
Examples: (vaccine WN AB AND 2016-* WN YR) retrieves documents published in 2016 or after in which the search term vaccine is contained in the ABSTRACT field.
(corrosion WN CV AND 2000-* WN YR) retrieves documents published in 2000 or after in which the search term corrosion is contained in the CONTROLLED TERMS field.
Note: The four-digit publication year must be immediately followed with a hyphen and an asterisk for the year range search query to work properly. Do not place spaces between the year, hyphen, and asterisk. Valid search query: (quasicrystal alloys WN TI AND 2000-* WN YR) Invalid search query: (quasicrystal alloys WN TI AND 2000 - * WN YR) |
Left Truncation (*) (at beginning of search term) | The left truncation operator (*) retrieves all terms ending with the same letters as the truncated term. However, you cannot use the left truncation operator at the beginning of the term and also at the end of the term.
Examples: *sorption returns adsorption, absorption, chemisorption, desorption, resorption, sorption
*yhemoglobin returns oxyhemoglobin, deoxyhemoglobin, carboxyhemoglobin, carbonmonoxyhemoglobin
*h*lobin returns hemoglobin, haemoglobin, haptoglobin, phytoglobin, oxyhaemoglobin, carboxyhemoglobin, apohemoglobin
Note: The search query *h*lobin* returns a syntax error as this is an invalid search query because there is a truncation command at the beginning of the search term and also at the end of the term. |
Left Truncation (*) (at beginning of year range query) | The left truncation command (*) allows users to find documents by representing the beginning year in a year range search query.
Examples: (*-2018 WN YR AND micro-galvanic effect WN TI) returns documents that were published in 2018 or before that have the search terms micro-galvanic effect in the TITLE field.
(*-2016 WN YR AND scanning electron microscopy WN AB) returns documents that were published in 2016 or before that have the search terms scanning electron microscopy in the ABSTRACT field.
Note: The asterisk must be immediately followed with a hyphen and the four-digit publication year for the year range search query to work properly. Do not place spaces between the asterisk, hyphen, and year. Valid search query: (*-2000 WN YR AND quasicrystal alloys WN TI) Invalid search query: (* - 2000 WN YR AND quasicrystal alloys WN TI) |
Wildcard or truncation limits | There is no limit to the total number of wildcards or truncation operators in a search query. Example: (comput* OR intel* OR artif* OR emerg* OR collab* OR invest* OR meas* WN TI) |
Search term wildcard and/or truncation limits | There is a limit of three (3) wildcard or truncation operators per search term. Examples: ((experim??? OR test??? OR techni???) WN TI) ((*h*lo*bin) WN AB) The following are syntax error examples due to exceeding the maximum number of wildcards and truncation operators in the search term: (([E???-0?(20??)??]) WN STDID) (*h*lo*bi?n) WN AB |
Truncation search queries require two or more characters for all fields except AUTHOR (AU) and FIRST AUTHOR (FIRSTAU). | The wildcard/truncation characters (?) and (*) must be adjacent to two or more characters in the search term.
Examples: (University of To*) WN AF (structural pr*) WN AB
Syntax errors will be present for the following examples in which the minimum number of characters were not present for search terms using the question mark (?) as a wildcard or the asterisk (*) as truncation: (*) WN AB (?) WN ALL (University of T*) WN AF Thermal d* WN CV |
Truncation search queries require one or more characters for the AUTHOR (AU) and FIRST AUTHOR (FIRSTAU) fields. The search query must be properly nested to be valid. | The AUTHOR (AU) and FIRST AUTHOR (FIRSTAU) fields require the following rules when using truncation to avoid syntax errors:
Examples: ((Bailey S*) WN AU) (Grahn R*) WN AU (Kumar P?) WN AU ((Browning K*) WN FIRSTAU) (Lowe R*) WN FIRSTAU (Scott, C?) WN FIRSTAU (Scot? A.) WN FIRSTAU ((Smith, A*) WN AU)
The following are examples of syntax errors for the following search queries in which one or more of the rules listed above were not followed while using truncation:
Examples: (Bailey S* WN AU) (R* WN AU) Kumar P* WN AU (Bailey S* WN FIRSTAU) (R* WN FIRSTAU) Kumar P* WN FIRSTAU ((Scot? C.) WN FIRSTAU |
Search terms beginning and ending with truncation operators are not permitted | A search term cannot have truncation operators both precede it and follow it in a search query.
Examples: Syntax errors for the following search queries: *radi* WN TI *hydrox* WN CV |
Wildcards and truncation are now supported in exact phrase searches. | In the following example, documents that contain derivatives of the root terms ({comput* intel*}) are found within the ABSTRACT field. ({comput* intel*} WN AB) Search results:
In the following example, documents that contain derivatives of the root terms ("emerg*" and "tech*") are found within the within the TITLE field. ("emerg* tech*" WN TI) Search results:
In the following example, documents that contain derivatives of the root term ("women* heal*" or "woman heal*") are found within the within the TITLE field. ("wom?n heal*" WN TI) Search results:
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The NEAR proximity operator now supports being used with wildcards or truncation. | In the following search query, the terms "meas*" and "emerg*" are expanded to various forms of these terms (e.g., "measure," "measurement," "measures," "measuring," "emergencies," "emerging," "emergent," "emergence,") etc. The title will contain these search terms within three words of each other. ((meas* NEAR/3 emerg*) WN TI) Search results:
In the following search query, the search phrases "auto* software*" and "mach* learn*" are expanded to various forms of these terms (e.g., "automated," "automatic," "automating," "automotive," "machine," "machine-learning," "learn," "learning," "learning-based,")etc. The title will contain these search phrases within three words of each other. ("auto* software*" NEAR/3 "mach* learn*" WN TI) Search results:
Refer to How do I use the Proximity / NEAR and ONEAR Operators for more information. |
The ONEAR proximity operator has been reinstated and now supports being used with wildcards or truncation. | In the following search query, the terms "meas*" and "emerg*" are expanded to various forms of these terms (e.g., "measure," "measurement," "measures," "measuring," "emergencies," "emerging," "emergent," "emergence,") etc. The title will contain these search terms within three words of each other. ((meas* ONEAR/3 emerg*) WN TI) Search results:
In the following search query, the search phrase "mach* learn*" and "auto* software*" are expanded to various forms of these terms (e.g., "machine," "learn," "learning," "automotive" "automatic," etc.). The title will contain these search phrases within three words of each other. Additionally, the derivatives of the phrase "mach* learn*" will precede the derivatives of the phrase "auto* software." ("mach* learn*" onear/3 "auto* software" WN TI) Search results:
Refer to How do I use the Proximity / NEAR and ONEAR Operators for more information. |
You might encounter a syntax error when attempting a search. Here are some possible reasons you received the error with suggestions for solving it.
Your search might contain the following:
- Asterisk or question mark used as a truncation or wildcard symbol in search query incorrectly
- Example: An asterisk or a question mark is used in the search query to both start and end query.
- Example: More than 3 asterisks or question marks are used per search term in the search query.
- Suggestion: Examine the query to find the asterisk(s) and/or question mark(s) to remove the incorrect occurrences of these wildcard or truncation symbols. Refer to the Wildcards and truncation section of this FAQ for additional information.
- Asterisk or question mark used as a truncation or wildcard symbol with search term containing insufficient number of characters
- Example: An asterisk or a question mark is used in the search query alone and does not contain any other search term(s).
- Example: An asterisk is used in the search query with fewer than two characters for any field except AUTHOR(AU) or FIRST AUTHOR (FIRSTAU).
- Example: An asterisk is used in the search query with one character for AUTHOR(AU) or FIRST AUTHOR (FIRSTAU) fields and the parentheses are not properly nested.
- Suggestion: Examine the query to find the asterisk or question mark and add search term(s) to correct the query. Refer to the Wildcards and truncation section of this FAQ for additional information.
- Exact search for text that contains double quotation marks
- Example: The exact search query contains curly braces and double quotation marks because the text contains quotation marks.
- Suggestion: Examine the query and add blackslashes before the beginning and ending quotation marks in order to escape them. Refer to the Exact phrase searches section of this FAQ for additional information.
- Incorrect default or optional unit in a numeric search
- Example: The query has a default or optional unit value that is incorrect.
- Suggestions:
- Examine the query to find the incorrect default or optional unit value and correct it.
- See Numeric search queries, Numeric search fields, and Numeric search optional units for additional information.
- Use the Numeric filter for precise numeric search queries.
- Incorrect field name
- Example: The query has a field code name that is incorrect.
- Suggestion: Examine the query to find the incorrect field name and correct it. See Expert search fields and field codes for further help.
- Incorrect use of special characters
- Example: The search query contains special characters (e.g., &, ^, %, @) without search terms.
- Suggestion: Examine the query and add specific search terms. Refer to the Special characters section of this FAQ for additional information.
- Missing numeric value for a numeric query
- Example: The numeric search query is missing a numeric value for the numeric default or optional unit.
- See Numeric search queries, Numeric search fields, and Numeric search optional units for additional information.
- Use the Numeric filter for precise numeric search queries.
- Suggestion: Review the for help in resolving this issue.
- Mixed proximity operators
- Example: The query has used the proximity operator incorrectly.
- Suggestion: Review the Proximity / NEAR operator FAQ for help in resolving this issue.
- NEAR proximity operator as the search term "NEAR"
- Example: The search query contains the term "NEAR." This term is reserved by the Engineering Village search engine as a proximity operator and is therefore a reserved term.
- Suggestion: Review the Proximity / NEAR operators FAQ and the Stopwords section of this general searching rules FAQ for help in resolving this issue.
- Numeric operator must follow a numeric field
- Example: The numeric search query is missing a numeric operator (e.g., AND, OR, NOT, EQ, LT, GT, LTE, GTE, etc.) after the numeric field.
- See Numeric search queries, Numeric search fields, and Numeric search optional units for additional information.
- Use the Numeric filter for precise numeric search queries.
- Suggestion: Review the for help in resolving this issue.
- Parentheses used incorrectly for a NEAR or ONEAR proximity operator search query
- Search terms in parentheses cannot be used with the NEAR and ONEAR proximity operators. The search terms in NEAR and ONEAR search queries must be immediately adjacent to the proximity operators and cannot be separated by parentheses.
- Example: A nested search query (using parentheses) separates the search terms from the NEAR or ONEAR proximity operators.
- Correctly formatted nested query when using a proximity operator:
- ((emerg* ONEAR/1 tech*) WN TI)
- ((lower NEAR/3 limb) OR (lower NEAR/3 extremity) WN AB)
- Incorrectly formatted nested query when using a proximity operator:
- (electric or gas) NEAR/2 energy WN AB
- data ONEAR/1 (quality or consistency) WN TI
- Suggestion: Rearrange the search terms in the query so that parentheses do not separate the search terms from the proximity operators. Refer to the Proximity / NEAR and ONEAR operators FAQ for further information.
- Parentheses within a query
- Example: Parentheses were included within the search query. Some Standard IDs have parentheses within them.
- Suggestion: Enclose the search query in double quotation marks or curly braces for the parentheses to be properly searched by the search engine. Refer to the Special characters section of this FAQ for additional information.
- Repeated operators (e.g., extra AND, OR, NOT)
- Example: The query has an extra or repeated operator.
- Suggestion: Examine the query to find the extra operator and delete it. Refer to the Boolean operators section of this FAQ for further help.
- Unbalanced braces { }
- Example: A brace is missing or the query has an extra brace.
- Suggestion: Examine the query to find the missing or extra brace and make the correction.
- Unbalanced parentheses ( )
- Example: A parenthesis is missing or the query has an extra parenthesis.
- Suggestion: Examine the query to find the missing or extra parenthesis and make the correction.
- Unbalanced quotation marks " "
- Example: Double quotation marks are missing, repeated double quotation marks are used, or only one set of double quotation marks appears (with no search terms).
- Suggestion: Examine the query to find missing or repeated double quotation marks and make the correction. Add search term(s) if only one set of double quotation marks appears in query.
- YEAR (YR) field supports only integer values and *
- Example: The search query contains the ‘YR’ field but does not contain integers or a wildcard *.
- Suggestion: Ensure the ‘YR’ field contains integers (four-digit year) or a wildcard (e.g., four-digit year-*). Refer to the Wildcards and truncation section (year range query examples) of this FAQ for further information.
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