The Keyword Search
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A keyword search is a text expression consisting of a single
word, a phrase, or multiple words which is compared
to a set of records in the hope of generating a match. Keyword searches
performed by this web site ignore non-alphanumeric characters
(#, !, ", @, ^, etc.) and are case insensitive (Public
will match PUBLIC and public). All news search results
may be narrowed by the selections in the pull down list
located immediately below the keyword text box.
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Single Words
By default the single word search results will include any
records with whole words and parts of words that match the
search word. For instance, if you were to search for "Bond"
matches would occur for "Bonding", "Bond",
"Bondsman" etc.
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Phrases
Any number of words not joined by boolean operators are
considered phrases, and the pattern match will occur for
the entire phrase. For instance, if you were to search for
"Sarasota Bonding Company", results would include only
records with this exact phrase. If you were in fact
looking for records containing any one of these words,
"Sarasota" or "Bonding" or "Company",
you will need to perform a multiple word (boolean) search.
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Multiple Words
To search for multiple words on a conditional basis you will
need to perform a special kind of logical search known as a
boolean search. See the section below for more information.
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The Boolean Search
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A boolean search is made up of keywords connected by the logical
(boolean) operators AND, OR and NOT. By using a
combination of keywords and boolean operators you can improve the
results of your search.
Apart from the boolean operators,
your search expression will be treated as independent words or phrases.
The order in which you enter the words does not affect the
result.
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Basic rules for performing a boolean search:
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- All boolean operators must be upper case (for example, use AND, do not use and), anything lower case will be treated as part of a search phrase rather than a boolean operator.
- All boolean operators should be preceeded and followed by a blank space.
- Multiple instances of a single operator type (for example, keyword OR keyword OR keyword... etc.) may be used in your search for any number of keywords.
- When searching for keywords you cannot combine (for example, do not use AND in the same search with OR etc) operator types.
- The NOT operator must precede its associated keyword as it should always apply to the text that immediately follows.
- Only the NOT operator may begin a boolean search expression, AND and OR should always be between two keywords.
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Examples of valid boolean
search strings:
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- smith AND august AND civil
- smith OR august OR civil
- NOT smith NOT august NOT civil
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Examples of invalid
boolean search strings:
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- smith OR august AND civil
- smith or august and civil
- august NOT smith NOT civil NOT
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