Search supports three types of search requests:

An "any words" search is any sequence of text, like a sentence or a question.   In an "any words" search, use quotation marks around phrases, put + in front of any word or phrase that is required, and - in front of a word or phrase to exclude it.  Examples:

banana pear "apple pie"

"apple pie" -salad +"ice cream"

An "all words" search request is like an "any words" search except that all of the words in the search request must be present for a document to be retrieved.

A "boolean" search request consists of a group of words, phrases, or boolean query with words linked by connectors such as AND and OR that indicate the relationship between them.  Examples:

If you use more than one connector, you should use parentheses to indicate precisely what you want to search for.  For example, apple and pear or orange juice could mean (apple and pear) or orange, or it could mean apple and (pear or orange). 

Noise words, such as if and the, are ignored in searches.

Search terms may include the following special characters: