Quick Tips and Examples
It's easy to search--just type in a few words or phrases. Try to use discriminating terms that are likely to be found only in the documents you seek. The more words you give, the better results you'll get. Here are some examples:
Search by typing words and phrases.
liability insurance reform
This search engine will find documents containing as many of these words and phrases as possible, ranked so that the documents most relevant to your search are presented first. Don't worry about missing a document because it doesn't have one of the words in your search -- this search engine returns relevant results even if they don't contain all your search terms.
Identify phrases with quotation marks, separate with commas.
"liability insurance reform" California, MICRA
A phrase is entered using double quotation marks, and only matches those words that appear adjacent to each other. Separate multiple phrases or proper names with a comma.
Use CAPITALIZATION to indicate exact match.
liability reform, MICRA
Capitalize proper nouns for an exact match. For example, this will match California's Medical Injury Compensation Reform Act, but not general references to "medical injury compensation"
For example, micra will find matches for Micra, micra, and MICRA, whereas a query for MICRA will only match MICRA.
Refining a Search
It's easy to refine a query to get precisely the results you want. Here are some effective techniques to try:
Identify a phrase.
Before: HIPAA regulations After: "HIPAA regulations"
The Before search is imprecise. Is it looking for HIPAA or regulations or both? Identifying "HIPAA regulations" as a phrase makes it more specific. This is the most powerful search-refinement technique.
Add a discriminating word or a phrase.
Before: "managed care" reform After: "managed care" reform legislation
The Before search is ambiguous. Adding "legislation" makes the search less ambiguous. You'll get more total matches (because the search is broadened with an additional term), but the relevance ranking will be better.
Capitalize when appropriate.
Before: cpt assistant coding After: CPT Assistant coding
These examples, when all lowercase, have a variety of possible interpretations. For example, without capitalization, "assistant" could refer to a person who renders assistance, and not the title of a publication. Capitalization reduces the ambiguity. It is always a good idea to capitalize proper names.
Use a require (+) or reject (-) indicator.
Before: virus After: virus, +West Nile, -malaria, -HIV
Virus alone is ambiguous. Is it looking for malaria, mosquito-borne viruses, or HIV? You can use the reject indicator (the "minus" sign) to eliminate the HIV and malaria interpretations. Or, you can require that the word "West Nile" be in the document. The After version above does both.
Use a field specifier.
Before: medical liability reform After: medical liability reform, title:Liability Reform Is Vital
If you are looking for a particular page for which you know the title, use the title: field specifier to search for that the word or phrase in the title of the page.
Requiring or Excluding Terms
This search engine has a simple search syntax that gives you the pinpoint search power of Boolean logic, without having to remember complex strings of search terms. The table below shows indicators that correspond to Boolean indicators:
| Search Indicator | Boolean Equivalent |
| default indicator: you need not use any special symbols |
OR |
| + | AND |
| - | NOT |
| phrase indicator: enclose the phrase with double quotation marks |
ADJ |
Boolean searches use the logical indicators AND, OR, NOT and ADJ (adjacent). Suppose you wanted to find medical liability reform legislation in states other than California. This query can be specified in Boolean logic as:
(medical liability) AND (reform OR (legislation)) AND NOT (California OR MICRA)
Using the indicators in the table above, the complex search above may be typed into the search box as:
+"medical liability" reform "legislation" -California, -MICRA
This search specifies that:
- All returned documents must contain the phrase "medical liability".
- Documents containing one or more of the terms "reform", or "legislation" will be ranked at the top (the more terms matched, the higher the ranking).
- None of the documents returned will contain either California or MICRA.
Content provided by: AMA