Newsbank: Help

Choosing Keywords

By default the keywords field will accept a list of words separated by spaces as in the example shown below:

congress economy policy

This query will show all stories that contain the words congress, economy and policy. The spaces are assumed to be Boolean ands (see section on Boolean Operators), meaning that all terms are required to be in all stories retrieved. This is only a small part of the potential power our search engine offers. Features such as Wildcard Characters and Proximity Operators are also available.

Phrase Searching

To search for an exact phrase, enter it in quotes:

"campaign finance reform"
"Bill Clinton"

This can help you match concepts and personal names exactly.

Finding Words in a Particular Area

If you need to be very exact about were the words you are searching for appear in the article, try using the field search section on the Advanced search page. Here you can enter a word or phrase that you want to find and then choose from several areas that the word must appear. If you need to find an article about "Saving Private Ryan", trying looking for it in the headline. If you want to read Dave Barry's column, search for his name in the author/byline field.

Finding Words in a Particular Area

You can choose to search for articles that were published in a particular year, or you can choose to select a date range from one particular day to another. If you want to find all of the available articles published in a newspaper for a particular day, just enter that date without any keywords.

Date Information (searching by date)

You can choose to sort the articles you find by listing the most recently published articles (newest) first. You can also choose to have the articles that best match your keywords, or most relevant, first.

Searching Ranges: In the basic search, you may select a date range from the drop down box.

Advanced Searching, Limit by date: Click "more options" in the search area. You may enter a single date, month, year, or range of dates in a variety of formats. Some papers may not be available in all date ranges.

Some examples:
Jan 1, 2000 to Feb 3, 2000 - Searches all articles between and on those dates.
January 2001 - Searches all articles in that month.
3/2002 - 1/2003 - Searches all articles between and in those months.
2003 - Searches all articles in that year.

Boolean Operators

Boolean operators permit you to create more complex queries and can be combined with Wildcards and Proximity Operators. To formulate a more complex query that combines boolean operators, select Advanced as your Search Type on the search form. See the list below for examples.

OPERATOR	DEFINITION	EXAMPLE
and	both terms must be present in the story.	congress and economy and policy
or	either term must be present in the story.	parliament or government
not	The word(s) following this operator cannot be present in the story	bill and gates not microsoft

Proximity Operators

Proximity operators allow you to specify just how close two words must occur in a story to be included in your results. See the examples below.

campaign adj5 contributions - contains campaign followed by contributions within five words
market near share - contains market and share within ten words and in any order

Wild Cards

OPERATOR	DEFINITION	EXAMPLE
*	Fills in a maximum of any five characters	pollu*n
?	Fills in any single character	wom?n

Something went wrong, or I am unhappy with the article. Can I get a refund?

Refunds and credits are granted only in cases where you were not able to retrieve an article that you located. If you successfully retrieved an article, you are not entitled to a refund, even if that article did not contain the information you were looking for.

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