To match all words you enter, use AND between words:
Smith
AND Jones
Finds items containing the words Smith
and Jones.
To match any words you enter, use OR between words:
sun
OR moon OR stars
Finds items containing any of these words: sun
or moon or stars.
To exclude a word from the search, use NOT or AND NOT before the word:
NOT Obama AND NASA
Finds items containing the word NASA (such as NASA exploration plan), but
excluding the word Bush (such as Bush approves the NASA exploration plan).
strike
AND NOT baseball
Finds items containing the word strike
(such as a transit strike or
airline strike) but not items
with the words strike and baseball (such as baseball
strike).
To match the exact name or phrase, use quotation marks " " around the phrase or names:
"Central
Services"
Finds headlines or stories containing the exact phrase Central
Services, not just the word Central
or the word Services. This also
prevents word expansion (or word stemming), so Central
Service or Centrally Serviced
does not match.
To specify the order in which your search terms are processed, surround the first set that you want processed with parentheses:
(media OR censorship) AND NOT radio
Since words enclosed by parenthesis are searched first, this example finds
items containing the word media
or censorship, then excludes
those that also contain the word radio.
reptiles AND (snakes AND NOT habitats)
Finds items containing the word snakes
but not habitats, then returns
items that also contain the word reptiles. Items
about snakes and reptiles
would be returned, but not about snake
habitats.
In this example, removing the parentheses does not change the results:
reptiles
AND snakes AND NOT habitats
Finds items containing the words snakes
and reptiles, then excludes items
that also have the word habitats.
In this example, the parentheses does change the results:
reptiles
AND (snakes OR habitats)
Finds items containing either the words reptiles
and snakes, or reptiles
and habitats.
reptiles
AND snakes OR habitats
Finds items containing either the words reptiles
and snakes or the word habitats.
AP Exchange uses standard Boolean precedence rules and searches for news items in this order:
Words surrounded by parentheses.
Words surrounded by quotation marks.
Words connected by NOT, AND, and finally, OR.
The sections on the Advanced Search page are connected via the AND operator. If no Boolean operator(s) are used within the keywords in the Search box and/or Advanced Search page boxes, AND is automatically used between words. This means that all words entered into the search boxes must be found in a news item for it to be returned from a search. The Selected Categories box on the Advanced Search page inserts an OR between sources, so the search returns all items that it finds with these matching categories.
After adding criteria into the Advanced Search boxes, they are combined into one search query using the following rules:
(Keywords 1 AND 2) AND (Metadata Field Specific Criteria) AND (Media Type 1 OR 2) AND (Released/time range) AND (Selected Products 1 OR 2)
For example, the search criteria:
Keywords: computer technology
Metadata Field: cycle=bc
Media Type: Text, Photo
Released In the last: 24 hours
Source: AP, Primezone
Is equivalent to the search query:
(computer AND technology) AND (cycle=bc) AND (mediatype=(text OR photo)) AND (posted in the last 24 hours) AND (source=(AP OR Primezone)).
