Search Tips

Basic Search Tips

To perform a simple search, type one or more words in the Search box on the left of the page and click Go. SAE Web Search returns a list of Web pages that contain one or more of your words. It also finds singular and plural forms of words.

The most relevant pages appear at the top of your results. The Results list show the Title, Date of publication type of document and an excerpt in some cases.

• Use words, phrases, or questions. Put quotes around a word or phrase to find exact matches. Leave a space between each word.
• Capitalization is respected; Customer Service will not return the same results as customer service and CUSTOMER SERVICE. Searching with all lowercase will include words which are capitalized
• If you aren't sure how to spell the search term, use an asterisk in place of one or more characters. For example, if you type col*r, search will find the words color, colour, and other words that begin with col and end with r.

The SAE Basic Search application does not recognize the Boolean operators AND, OR and NOT but instead employs a simplified search syntax based upon the plus (+) and minus (-) operators. Please consult the table below for instructions on their use in our search application.

Operator Action Example plus sign (+) Requires a word or phrase (there should not be a space between the plus sign and the required term) The results must contain pages with "cylinder pressure sensors " and spark "cylinder pressure sensors " +spark minus sign (-) Excludes documents containing the word or phrase (there should not be a space between the minus sign and the term being excluded) The results contain pages with "cylinder pressure sensors" but not the word spark. "cylinder pressure sensors " -spark quotation (" ") Indicates a phrase (adjacent words) "cylinder pressure sensors " pipe (|) Narrows search from broad subject to a specific topic injection | Electronic comma (,) Used to separate names and phrases Mario Andretti, Alain Prost fieldname:term Specifies that the term(word or phrase) must be found in that field. See listing of fieldnames in the table below. title: "Spark Advance and Air-Fuel Ratio"

Simplified Query Syntax Using the simplified query syntax offers the same search capabilities as traditional Boolean logic, however, the simplified syntax is much easier to use and learn. The table below shows the simplified operators and their corresponding Boolean operators:

Search operator Boolean equivalent default operator: you need not use any special symbols OR + AND - NOT Phrase operator :(" ") enclose the phrase with double quotation marks ADJ

Advanced Search

Use Advanced search for greater control over your search. Complete the form as follows:

Category list

When you search for one or more words, Search compiles a list of relevant categories for the results. If you don't see what you need in the list of pages, limit your search by selecting a more specific category from the list. Search provides a new set of results by searching in the selected category for the words you entered. Examine the results, and if you still don't see what you need, select another category to further limit your search.

Select the criteria you want to use:

• Use with all of the words field to request a narrower search. Each result contains all of your search words in any order.
• Use any of the words fields to request a broader search. Each result contains one or more of your search terms in any order.
• Use with the exact phrase to request a search of a phrase in the order you enter the words. Each result contains the exact phrase
• Use without the words to request a search that that does not contain the word.

Note: You must enter a word in at least one of the fields. If you can apply the narrowest search by entering something in all the fields.

Expert Search

The expert search form provides the ability to perform complex searches without having to explicitly use the search query syntax. The form is composed of three fields and a number of drop-downs. You must enter search criteria in the first field before you enter one in the second field.

Search in: The first dropdown list box give the option to limit your search to a certain group of documents such as papers, books, magazines etc.

There three drop down option lists for each entry field. The first list has two condition options for the first field and three condition options for the other two fields. These options are:

• Must contain:
  the requested documents must contain the search keyword or phrase
• Should Contain:
  the requested documents may or may not contain the search keyword or phrase. For example, searching for Engine in the first field with the must contain predicate and spark in the second field with should contain predicate. All documents in the result list contain engine and some may contain spark
• Must not contain:
  Using the example above, searching for engine with a must contain condition in the first field and spark with a must not contain condition in the second field, will bring back documents that contain engine but not documents that contain engine and spark

The second drop-down above each search field provides you the option to restrict your search to predefined fields such as title, description, author etc. The default is all which means that all fields will be searched.

The drop-down simple allows you to search for individual words or phrase.