Hints on Searching

1. The search function returns a list of entries classified to ALSO! pages, showing descriptive labels for federal/national pages (e.g., United States--Significant Recent Legislation) and names for state/provincial pages (e.g., Minnesota). Only entries containing links to sources are returned.

2. Key words may be matched in URLs as well as text. Therefore, if a found entry seems not to belong in the returned list because no key word is seen in the text, check the URL; a key word should be seen there.

3. Words separated by spaces are interpreted as a phrase. For instance,
   
   will return entries containing the phrase attorney general rather than all entries containing the two words attorney and general.

4. To find entries containing various forms of words, append the asterisk * to an appropriate word fragment. For instance, to find all entries containing words beginning with tax (such as tax, taxes, taxation, taxpayer), use
   
   Note that this may be necessary in order to match plurals as well as the singular forms.

5. To indicate alternatives within any search field, separate the alternatives with the vertical bar | character. For instance,
   
   will find all entries containing either thrift or credit union (a phrase). Note that this approach may be used to find plurals as well as the singular forms (such as company | companies and child | children).

6. All words are treated as significant, including so-called noise words (a, an, the, and, or, of, in, etc.). Thus, for instance, a search for rules of court will find entries containing that phrase exactly, and any entries containing the phrase rules court will not be returned. However, the search function is not case-sensitive. All key words are converted to lowercase before the search is performed.

   Here is an example to illustrate the three foregoing rules. These key words:
    … AND …
   
   may be used to find entries containing links to opinions of courts designated with any of these phrases in their titles: supreme court, court of appeal, or court of appeals.

7. The following character strings will be stripped from the list of key words before a search is performed: href, ftp, gopher, http, telnet, www, lawsource, lawsource.com, and "://".

8. The delay before search results are displayed may be relatively long, depending on how many files are to be searched, how many keywords are to be used, and how complex is the search structure (for instance, whether there are word fragments with the asterisk and whether there are alternatives). Be patient.