Search Instructions
Key Word Search
- Entering a single word in the search box returns all documents containing that word.
- Entering multiple words will return documents containing all of the terms (as if there is an AND between each word). Example: A search for Kant Hegel will return only those documents containing both names.
- Leave the search term box empty and click [Enter] to find all documents, which can then be searched with additional options (see Modifying Your Search Example*).
- Note: Searches are not case-sensitive.
Relevancy
- Search results are ordered by relevancy by default (e.g., frequency of the word in the document, etc.).
- When the search term(s) are contained in the title of the document, it is considered more relevant.
- Multiple terms (including quotes or phrases) are ranked as more relevant than single words. To use a phrase along with other terms not in the phrase surround the phrase portion with double quotes ( " ). Example: There slumber in every human being
Modifying Your Search
- Any search may be modified with the search options located below the search box.
- Results can be sorted by GA# or date rather than the default of relevancy.
- All options other than sorting narrow the search results in some way. Example: This query will produce all matches of Kant and Hegel in lectures given at Dornach. Note how Dornach now appears in the city option box.
- [Clear] to revert all options to their default settings but leaves the search terms themselves unchanged.
Example*: After clicking [Enter] with no terms in the search box, narrow the results to see all documents translated by Dorothy Osmond.
Advanced
Wildcards
- Some characters known as wildcards have special meaning to the search engine.
- A question mark ( ? ) matches any single character. Example: A search for c?t would match cat, cot, and cut.
- An asterisk ( * ) matches zero or more characters in sequence. Example: A search for under* will match under, understand, undergo, etc.
Fuzzy Searching
- Another special character is the tilde ( ~ ) which finds terms off by a letter or two.
- This is useful when you are unsure of the correct spelling. Example: Here the term Christmas is misspelled: Christmus~. If you has left the tilde off, no results would be found.
However, even without the tilde, a suggestion will often be presented which links to what the search engine thought you meant: Christmus.
Boolean Operators
- The search engine can follow Boolean search terms.
- One boolean operator may be of particular interest, namely the minus sign ( - ). Preceding any term with a minus sign will exclude that term from the search results. Example: A search for kant -hegel will match all documents containing Kant that do not contain Hegel.
Range Searches
- Range searches allow you to limit any of the options to a specified subset of all results. Example - GA: To find all documents containing the word Kant within the lectures to the Goetheanum workers series (GA 347 to 354), enter kant volume:[347 TO 354]
Example - Year: To find all documents containing the word Kant dated between 1908 and 1920, enter kant year:[1908 TO 1920]
Additional Help
- For a more detailed explanation of the inner workings of the search engine itself please see the search engine documentation.