How does the Advanced Search work?
Last updated on November 03, 2021
The Advanced Search form offers an easy-to-use form to assist in building your query. You may specify one or more pieces of information from across fields (Title, Author, Publisher) and/or use the Free-text search box. When you enter something in the Free-text search box, you are searching for that entry in all fields as well as in the text of Knovel’s content.
None of the available search boxes are mandatory in an advanced search query. You are simply required to enter search criteria in at least one search box.
To move between the Basic Search and Advanced Search modes, queries are carried from Basic to Advanced, and vice versa. For more information, also see How can I construct a more complex search in Basic Search?, as well as Search in Knovel video and Knovel’s Quick Start Guide.
How
Follow these steps to run a new search in the Advanced Search form:
- Click on the Advanced Search link beneath the search box at the top of the homepage and most Knovel search result pages.
- Enter your search term(s) in the appropriate search box(es).
- Select 'Search'.
Field
Explanation
Title
Searches only the book title and database title fields for instances of term(s).
Author
Searches only the author field for the author(s) name(s).
Publisher
Searches only the publisher field for the publisher name(s).
Free-text
Searches across all of our content without regard to where the instances of the term(s) is found.
- Multiple search boxes (fields and/or Free-text) are combined using the Boolean AND. In other words, if you enter aluminum in the Title field and Elsevier in the Publisher field, the query will be executed as title: aluminum AND publisher: Elsevier, where both search criteria must be present.
- Boolean operators currently supported within fields include AND, OR and NOT.
- If no Boolean operator is included between terms in a search box, an understood AND is used between terms.
- Boolean precedence is a left-to-right ordering. However, parentheses can be used to enforce clear groupings to ensure the query is executed as intended.
For example:
Alaska AND pipelines OR refineries (without any user-initiated groupings) will be read by the search engine as (Alaska AND pipelines) OR refineries. While this search will return results that include both Alaska and pipelines together, it will also return refineries with and without Alaska.
If you are intending to find information about the design of pipelines or refineries in Alaska, you should explicitly include parentheses in your search: Alaska AND (pipelines OR refineries).
- Quotation marks can be used to specify terms which must appear next to each other in a particular order, i.e. as a phrase.
For example: "global warming" (using the quotation marks) will search for the phrase, global warming, where the words global and warming are found right next to each other, with global preceding warming.
- Wildcards can be used in a search to represent one or more characters. An asterisk (*) can be used to specify any number of characters, typically used at the end of a root word to pick up various endings. A question mark (?) can be used to represent a single character, anywhere in the word and is most helpful when there are variable spellings for a word that you want to search all at once.
For example:
combust* will return instances of combust, combustion, combustible, combustibility, etc.
Sm?th will return instances of smith and Smyth if you aren’t sure of the spelling.
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