Please note: This archive was last updated in 2005.

Search Tips

Type a description of what you are looking for in the box below, then click on the Search button.

After clicking on a page link from your search results list, use the Edit/Find function in your web browser to locate your search words or phrase in that page.

Search tips

Use quotation marks

Use quotation marks to find words that must appear adjacent to each other. For example, typing in "health of women "  (with quotation marks) will search the site for documents containing the phrase health of women. Typing in the same words without quotation marks will produce search results that include any of those words anywhere, and in any order, within the document.

Check spelling

Make sure your search terms are spelled correctly. The search engine will attempt to find words that sound similar your search terms, but it is always best to try to spell the search terms correctly.

Use multiple words

Use multiple words when performing your search. The search results will return more refined results from several words than from a single word. For example, typing safe delivery methods will yield more relevant results than typing only delivery. (Please 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 results you will get back.

Use appropriate capitalization

Capitalize proper nouns. Lowercase words will match any case. For example, typing adolescent will return all documents containing the words adolescent, Adolescent, and ADOLESCENT.

Use plus (+) or minus (-) symbols

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. A phrase must be contained within quotation marks. Leave no spaces between the plus or minus sign and the term. For example, +"maternal mortality" will indicate that the phrase maternal mortality is required in the search results.

Use wildcards

Wildcard searches can expand the number of matches for a particular request. The asterisk (*) 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 that have a word that starts with wh and that 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, and so on.

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