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Simple Searching

Broaden or Narrow  |  Phrases   |  Dates  |  Fields  |   Truncating  |  Proximity


If you are looking for a story from 1997 to the present, you can search on the EZ Search screen.

In the search box, type search words and phrases that should be included in the articles that you are seeking. Searches are not case-sensitive. Click the search button or hit enter.

EX-Files will retrieve a list of headlines with publication dates, days, bylines, sections, and page numbers.

To view the full-text of an article, click on the headline.

Boolean Operators - Narrowing or Broadening Your Search
Too many articles? Try narrowing your search with "and."

For example:

- Schools and uniforms
- Restaurants and smoking
- Peak and Spurs

Too few articles? Expand your search with "or." Separate your terms with parentheses to prevent ambiguity.

For example:

- (Gun or rifle or weapon or handgun) and (children or teens or adolescents)
- Tobacco and (signs or billboards)

Searching for phrases
If you want two or more words to appear next to each other, enter those words in the search box. Single quotations are needed.

For example:

- 'Tower of the Americas' and celebration
- 'River walk' and accident

Searching by date
From EZ Search, you can narrow your search to a certain date or date range from 1997 to the present. (Note: To search before 1997, you need to search from the Power Search screen.) For date searches, always use the format yyyymmdd. With this format, January 3, 1999 would be 19990103.

For example:

- Spurs and 19980328:date
- Smoking and date > 19980101 and date < 19980301

Searching by bylines, headlines and lead paragraphs
A reporter's byline (by) can be included in your search.

For example:

- flood and (Chris Williams):by
- Cisneros and Casey:by

Restricting your search words to the headline (head) and/or first paragraph (lead) can help narrow your search. For example:

-  Buyout program to start Monday:head
-  city hall:lead

Truncation and wild cards
You can search for plural or multiple word endings. * will find any number of ending characters.

For example
:

- Pollut* will find pollution, polluter, polluters, polluting or polluted

You can also search for single characters by using a ?.

For example:

- Wom?n will find woman or women
-  medic??? will find medicine or medicaid or medicate

Proximity connectors
Use w/n to search for words within a certain number (n) of words of each other, in any order. This is particularly useful when you are searching for a person and you don't know if the reporter used the person's middle name or middle initial.

For example:

- Truck w/4 safety will find truck within 4 words of safety
-  Hillary w/2 Clinton will find Hillary Clinton or Hillary R. Clinton or   Hillary Rodham Clinton

Advanced Search Tips