*Note: After searching, you can return to the WPAS
website by pressing the back button on your browser or clicking on the WPAS logo
at the top of the page.
Search Tips:
Check spelling
Make sure your search terms are spelled correctly.
Use multiple words
Using multiple words will return better results than a single word. For
example, typing personal assistance services will return more relevant results
than typing just assistant. (Keep in mind that relevant results are
returned even if they don't contain all query terms.)
Use similar words
The more similar words you use in a search, the more relevant your results
will be.
Example: safe secure privacy security
Use appropriate capitalization
Capitalize proper nouns, and remember that lower-case words will match any
case. For example, typing search will return all documents
containing the words search, Search, and
SEARCH.
Typing Search, however, will instruct the search engine to look
only for the capitalized word.
Use quotation marks
Use quotation marks to find words which must appear adjacent to each other,
for example, "personal assistance services" Otherwise, the search results
will include the word personal,
assistance, and the word
services, but not necessarily in that order. The words may
appear anywhere, and in any order, within the document.
Use plus (+) or minus (-)
Use a plus sign when your search term or phrase must appear in the search
results. Use a minus sign to indicate undesirable term(s). The plus sign tells
the search engine that a certain word or phrase is required in the search
results, and a minus sign indicates that a word or phrase must be absent in the
search results.
Note: A phrase must be contained within quotation marks. Leave no spaces
between the plus or minus sign and the term.
Example: +"personal assistance services"
Use field searches
Field searches allow you to create specific searches for words that appear in
a specific part of a document. A field search can be performed on body text
(body:), title text (title:), alt text (alt:), meta description (desc:), meta
key words (keys:), URL (url:) or meta target key words (target:). The field name
should be in lower-case and immediately followed by a colon. There should be no
spaces between the colon and the search term.
Note: The field searches can only be followed by a word or phrase. Phrases
must be contained within quotation marks.
Examples:
title:about
desc:disability
keys:"brain injury"
body:"mental health parity"
alt:e-mail
url:WPAS
target:discrimination
Use wildcards
Wildcard searches can expand the number of matches for a particular request.
The * character is used as the wildcard character.
For instance, searching for wh* will find the words
what,
why, when, whether, and any other word
that starts with wh.
Searching for *her* will find the words
here,
whether, together, gathering, and any other
word that contains her anywhere in the word.
Wildcards may be combined with the standard plus (+) and minus (-) modifiers,
quotes for phrases, as well as the field search specifiers.
+wh* -se*ch will find all pages which have a word that starts with
wh and which does not contain a word that starts with
se
and ends with ch.
"wh* are"
will find the phrases where are,
what are, why are, etc.
Examples:
wh*
"wh* are"
415-*-*
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