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  1. Four Things You Should Know About Google Search:
  2. Tell me more about the basic search:
  3. Can I sort results?
  4. What are automatic "and" queries?
  5. "OR" Searches
  6. Does capitalization matter?
  7. Does Google use stemming?
  8. How can I refine my search?
  9. Am I able to exclude words?
  10. How do phrase searches work?
  11. Can you help me decipher the RWJF.org search results page?
  12. Is there a reference guide that offers general Google search help?

  1. Four Things You Should Know About Google Search: (Answer last updated on Aug 21, 2009)

    1. By default, Google only returns pages that include all of your search terms. See Automatic "and" Queries.
    2. Google does not use "stemming" or support "wildcard" searches. Rather, Google searches for exactly the words that you enter into the search box. See Does Google Use Stemming?
    3. To retrieve pages that include either word A or word B, use an uppercase "OR" between terms. See "OR" Searches.
    4. You can exclude a word from your search by putting a minus sign ("-") immediately in front of the term you want to exclude. See Restricted Searches.
             

  2. Tell me more about the basic search: (Answer last updated on Aug 21, 2009)

    To enter a query, type in a few descriptive words and press the "Enter" key or click the Search arrow for a list of relevant results.

    Google uses sophisticated text-matching techniques to find pages that are both important and relevant to your search. For instance, Google analyzes not only the candidate page, but also the pages linking into it to determine the value of the candidate page for your search. Google also prefers pages in which your query terms are near each other.

  3. Can I sort results? (Answer last updated on Aug 21, 2009)

    By default, the Sort by feature sorts and presents your search results based on relevance to your keyword(s). You have the option to change the sort to date, title or type. Results that do not contain dates are displayed at the end, sorted by relevance.

  4. What are automatic "and" queries? (Answer last updated on Aug 21, 2009)

    By default, Google only returns pages that include all of your search terms. There is no need to include "and" between terms. For example, to search for a report about the nutritional policies in San Francisco schools, enter:

    To broaden or restrict the search, include fewer or more terms. For example, to search for information on nutritional policies in elementary schools, enter:

  5. "OR" Searches (Answer last updated on Aug 21, 2009)

    Google supports the logical "OR" operator. To retrieve pages that include either word A or word B, use an uppercase "OR" between terms. For example, to search for either a chart or a slide depicting health care costs, enter:

  6. Does capitalization matter? (Answer last updated on Aug 21, 2009)

    Google searches are not case sensitive. All letters, regardless of how you enter them, are understood as lower case. For example, searches for “Green House Wall Street Journal” will return the same results as “green house project wall street journal” (and yields you a great list of articles we’ve featured about RWJF grantee, the Green House Project that appeared in the Wall Street Journal).

  7. Does Google use stemming? (Answer last updated on Aug 21, 2009)

    To provide the most accurate results, Google does not use "stemming" or support "wildcard" searches. Rather, Google searches for exactly the words that you enter into the search box.

    For example, searching for "disable" or "disabled" will not yield "disabilities" or "disability." If in doubt, try both forms, for example: "disable" and "disabilities."

  8. How can I refine my search? (Answer last updated on Aug 21, 2009)

    Since Google only returns web pages that contain all of the words in your query, refining or narrowing your search is as simple as adding more words to the search terms you have already entered. The refined query returns a specific subset of the pages that were returned by your original broad query.

    You can refine your results by adding more search terms or keywords to the text box appearing at the top of the left column of the search results page.

  9. Am I able to exclude words? (Answer last updated on Aug 21, 2009)

    You can exclude a word from your search by putting a minus sign ("-") immediately in front of the term you want to exclude. Make sure you include a space before the minus sign, but do not leave a space after the minus sign.

    For example, the search:

    will return pages about prevention that do not contain the word "tobacco."

  10. How do phrase searches work? (Answer last updated on Aug 21, 2009)

    You can search for phrases by adding quotation marks. Words enclosed in double quotes ("like this") appear together in all returned documents. Phrase searches using quotation marks are useful when searching for famous sayings or specific names. If you are searching for information about RWJF's President and CEO you can search:



    Certain characters serve as phrase connectors. Phrase connectors work like quotes because they join your search words in the same way double quotes join your search words. For example, the search:

    is treated as a phrase search even though the search words are not enclosed in double quotes. Google recognizes hyphens, slashes, periods, equal signs, and apostrophes as phrase connectors.

  11. Can you help me decipher the RWJF.org search results page? (Answer last updated on Aug 21, 2009)

    1. The title
      The first line of any search result is the title of the RWJF publication or Web page. The title also serves as a hyperlink to that Web page.
    2. The snippet
      A description of or an excerpt from the Web page. RWJF editors try to provide you a short sentence or two that describes the publication so you can judge the relevancy to your search. 
    3. The type
      This is an indicator of the publication type or Web page type that appears in the search results.
    4. The date
      This tells you when the publication was released. If the search result is a Web page, we do not include a published date (since these pages are refreshed often, the date would not provide much value).
    5. Sort results
      You have many ways to change the sort of your search results. RWJF defaults to sort by relevance to keyword(s), but you have the option to display by title, type or date through the "Sort results" drop-down. Additionally, you can click on any of the search results column headers, “Title,” “Type" or "Date” and the list of results will re-sort into an alphabetical list by title or type, or will re-sort to display the most recent results at the top.
    6. Items per page
      By default, RWJF provides 10 items per page of search results. But you have the option to include 20 or 30 results per page through the "Items per page" drop-down.
    7. Pagination
      We offer a quick way to jump to page 5 of your search results by listing the pages of results along the top of the list. 
    8. Filters
      Along the left side, RWJF offers enhanced filtering. Once you have searched for “quality health care” you receive more than 2,000 results on RWJf.org. Maybe you are interested in only finding a particular type of publication. In this instance, you can filter the current list by expanding the "Publication type" menu (click on the plus sign), then narrowing your search results by “journal articles” or “policy and issue publications.” You can filter your search results by date, age group, gender, ethnicity, location and program area (to see work produced by a specific Foundation program team), just to name a few.
    9. Best Bets
      If we have a specific area of the site or a specific Web page that matches your keyword search spot on, RWJF will offer one or two "Best Bets" results. In this example, after searching for “quality health care,” we recommend two good places to start: either the Quality/Equality Program Area—dedicated to the work of the RWJF Team—or the Quality topic landing page which is an entryway into all our publications on the topic of interest. You can choose to visit one of our "Best Bets" or continue to scroll through the list of organic search results.

  12. Is there a reference guide that offers general Google search help? (Answer last updated on Aug 21, 2009)

     Yes. Google offers a printer-friendly cheat sheet.

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