AND: The AND operator retrieves all specified search terms. For example, searching for Knowledge AND management AND Elium returns only results that contain all three search terms. This results in limited outcomes.
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OR: The OR operator retrieves results that contain at least one of the specified terms. Searching for Knowledge OR Elium OR Management returns all items that include any of the three search terms. This yields a larger number of results.
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NOT: The NOT operator excludes items that contain the specified term. Searching for Knowledge NOT Elium returns items related to Knowledge, but specifically excludes those that contain the word Elium.
This serves as a method to fine-tune results.
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Quotation Marks “ “: Quotation marks are used to define phrases that must appear together in the article. The words within the quotation marks, including spaces and special characters (numbers, punctuation, symbols), are treated as a complete and indivisible set. The order of the words is significant.
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For example, “Knowledge Management” treats the phrase “Knowledge Management” as a whole. You will not receive articles that discuss only Knowledge or only Management.
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Brackets (): Brackets help structure the query and are useful for complex searches. They allow for the creation of groups of words that can interact with one another, functioning similarly to a mathematical formula.
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For example: Knowledge AND (management OR sharing) NOT Elium.
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Question Mark ?: This command acts as a wildcard. It can be placed at any point within a word. During the search, the letter replaced by the question mark can be substituted with any other character. Use question marks cautiously, as their placement may yield unexpected results.
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For example: organi?ation will return results containing either organisation or organization.
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Asterisk *: The asterisk can only be used at the end of words and replaces multiple letters. It should be used with even greater caution than question marks.
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For example: orga*. This will return results such as organised, organisation, etc.
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Tilde ~: The tilde is used with quotation marks to specify that the words should be no more than a specified distance apart. This is useful for finding words within the same sentence (set a low number) or in the same paragraph (set a slightly higher number).
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For example: “Knowledge management”~8 means the two words must be together within a group of 8 words and can appear in any order.
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When a user selects two tags from the same category, an OR is applied. The user allows for the presence of either one of the two tags in the searched articles. For example, selecting the tags "Belgium" and "France" from the same "Country" category will display articles tagged with either "Belgium", "France", or both.
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When a user selects two tags from different categories, an AND is applied. The user requires the searched articles to include both tags. For example, selecting the "Belgium" tag in the "Country" category and the "Food industry" tag in the "Sector" category will display articles related to the food sector in Belgium only.
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