Search Tips

Use the following guidelines to search effectively within a Network or a dataverse:

  • The default search syntax uses AND logic within individual fields. That is, if you enter more than one term, the search engine looks for all terms within a single field, such as title or abstract.
    For example, if you enter United Nations report, the results list any studies that include the terms United, Nations, and report within a single metadata field.
  • The search logic looks for multiple terms within a specific proximity to one another, and in the same field. The current proximity criteria is four words. That is, if you enter two search terms, both terms must be within four words of each other in the same field to be returned as a result.
    For example, you might enter 10 year in a basic search. If a study includes the string 10 millions deaths per year within a metadata field, such as abstract, that study is not included in the search results. A study that contains the string 10 per year within the abstract field is included in the search results.
  • You can enter one term in the search field, and then search within those results for another term to narrow the results further. This might be more effective than searching for both terms at one time, if those terms do not meet the proximity and field limits specified previously.
    You could first search for an author's name, and then search those results for a specific term in the title. If you try searching for both terms in the author and title fields together, you might not find the study for which you are looking.
    For example, you can search the IQSS DVN for the following study:

    Gary King; Will Lowe, 2003, "10 Million International Dyadic Events", hdl:1902.1/FYXLAWZRIA UNF:3:um06qkr/1tAwpS4roUqAiw== Murray Research Archive [Distributor]

    If you type King, 10 Million in the Search field and click Search, you see 0 matches were found in the Results field. If you type 10 in the Search field and click Search, you see something like 1621 matches were found in the Results field. But if you first type King in the Search field and click Search, then type 10 Million in the Search field and click Search again, you see something like 4 matches were found in the Results field.