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About Brown's Search Engine
The Brown search engine is running Thunderstone's Webinator, version 2.5. The search engine is currently spidering www.brown.edu and over 65 other servers in the *.Brown.EDU domain.
Documentation about using the Brown search engine is available on the following topics:
Search Help
Forming a Query
A search can be as simple or as complex as needed. Entering a few words that describe what you are trying to locate usually works best. To perform more complicated searches you might use a combination of logic operators, special pattern matchers, concept expansion, or proximity operations.
For example, to search for pages describing computer facilities at Brown, simply type:
Brown Computer Facilities
If a search turns up too many or too few results, try some of the following rules of thumb.
Query Rules of Thumb
- If you get too many junk or nonsense answers, consider:
- Adding more words to your query.
- Selecting fewer servers to limit your search. (Hold down the control key as you click to select more than one.)
- Clicking on the Options button and decreasing the range of the Proximity control.
- Clicking on the Options button and changing the Word Forms control to Exact.
- Looking at the Match Info to see why they are showing up.
- Using the Exclusion Operator (-) to remove unwanted terms.
- Putting hypens between the words to get a specific phrase: e. g., Brown-Bookstore
- Putting quotation marks around the phrase to get words in a specific order: e. g., "Brown Bookstore".
- If you get too few or no answers consider:
- Removing some words from your query.
- Examining your spelling, or do a fuzzy search to allow for misspellings.
- Clicking on the Options button and increase the scope of the Proximity control.
- That what you are looking for might not be on the Brown web.
Advanced Query Options
Advanced query options can be reached by clicking on the Options button next to the Submit button.
- Controlling proximity
With this control, you can locate results with greater precision. You have several options to control the proximity of your search terms in web documents:
- line
All query terms must occur on the same line.
- sentence
All query items must occur within the same sentence.
- paragraph
All query items must occur within the same paragraph or text block.
- page (default)
All query items must occur within same HTML document
The bar-graph display (   ) is shown any time a ranking search was performed (i. e., all searches except Show Parents).
- Word Forms
The word forms option allows you to search for plural and posessive forms of a word; for example, a search for dog will also give you results for dogs and dog's. You can also search for different forms of a word; a search for logic finds logic, logical, logically, logica and and other permutations of the word. (More details.)
- Ranking Factors
The ranking algorithm takes into consideration relative word order, word proximity, database frequency, document frequency, and position in the text. The relative importance of these factors in computing the quality of a hit can be altered under RANKING FACTORS on the Options page.
Wildcards and Phrases
To search for specific words, type them into the text box. Letter cases will be ignored.
The wild-card character * (asterisk) may be used to match just the prefix of a word or to ignore the middle of a word or phrase. If the item you wish to locate is more complicated than the simple * wild-card can accomplish, try using the regular expression matcher.
To locate a number of adjacent words in a specific order, surround them with " (double quotation) characters. Putting a '-' (hyphen) between words will also force word order and one word proximity.
Examples:
Query Locates
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john john, John
"john public" John Public, john public
web-browser Web browser, web-browser
John*Public John Q. Public, John Public, John. However, the Public
456*a*def 1-23456-789-ABCDEF
activate activate, activation, activated... (see Word Forms)
Applying Search Logic (-, + and @)
You can also use set logic for text queries. The examples below make reference to single keywords, but keep in mind that each keyword can represent an entire list of things or any of the special pattern matchers.
Sets (or lists) of things are specified by placing the elements within parenthesis, separated by commas: for example, (bob,joe,sam,sue). In the examples below, you can replace any of the keywords with this sort of list.
Default search behavior is to locate an intersection (or 'AND') of every element within a query. So, the query "Brown registrar office" is the equivalent to the boolean query "Brown AND registrar AND office".
- '-' (without)
The '-'(minus) is the most commonly used logic symbol. It means the answer should EXCLUDE references to that item.
- '+' (mandatory)
The '+'(plus) symbol in front of a search item means that the answer MUST INCLUDE that item. This option is generally used in conjunction with the permutation operation.
- '@N' (permute)
The '@' followed by a number indicates how many intersections to locate of the terms in your query.
Note: Only the '+' and '-' operations are valid with a relevance rank search.
Example Finds
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bob sam joe Bob with Sam and Joe (within the selected proximity)
bob sam -joe Bob with Sam without Joe
bob sam joe @1 Bob with Sam, or, Bob with Joe, or, Joe with Sam
A B C D @1 AB or AC or AD or BC or BD or CD
+A B C D @1 ABC or ABD or ACD
A B C -D @1 ( AB or AC or BC ) without D
Natural Language Query
You may enter a query in the form of a sentence or question. The software will automatically identify the important words and phrases within your query and remove the "noise words."
- Example:
- What is the state of the art in text retrieval?
- The software will search for:
- state of the art AND text AND retrieval
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Special Pattern Matchers (%, / and #)
These pattern matchers are used to locate hard-to-find items within text. Specific examples are given below.
- % for fuzzy searches: finds something that's "like" your query. This pattern matcher is based on percentage differences. You may specify what percentage to look for by putting two digits after the %.
- / for complex patterns: finds complex strings in specific places in text. This command is similar to regexp in Unix.
- # for finding quantities: finds numeric values. For example, you can specify values equal to (#5000), greater than (#>5000), greater than or equal to (#>=5000), less than (#<5000), less than or equal to (#<=5000), or between values (#>5000<6000)
These pattern matchers can slow queries. Therefore they require other keyword(s) in the query, and are disabled entirely under Page Proximity.
Example Matcher Finds
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ronald %regan Approximate Ronald Raygun, Ronald Re~an, Ronald 8eagan
%75MYPARTNO9045d/6a Approximate Anything within 75% of looking like MYPARTNO9045d/6a
/19[789][0-9] Reg. Expr. 1970-1999
/[1-9]{3}\-=[0-9]{4} Reg. Expr. Phone numbers like 555-1212, 631-8544
#87 Numeric four score and seven, 87
#>=100 Numeric one hundred and one, 100
#>0<1 Numeric Fractions like 9/16, 55%, 0.123, 15 nanoseconds
Using Word Forms
The Word forms options give you control over how many variations of your query terms will be sought in your search.
- exact: (default) Only exact matches will be allowed.
- plural & posessives: Plural and possessive forms will be found. (s, es, 's)
- any word forms: As many word forms as can be derived will be located.
EXAMPLES:
president
EXACT : president
PLURAL: (above) + presidents president's
ANY : (above) + presidential presidency preside presides presiding presided
tight
EXACT : tight
PLURAL: (above) + tights
ANY : (above) + tightly tightening tightened tighter tightest
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