Search Help
On this page:
Quick Search
Using keywords in the Quick Search
Submitting your search
Advanced Search
Entering your search keywords
Boolean search
Targetting your search
Selecting "Title ONLY" or "Title and Summary ONLY"
These tips are simple to use and will help you find what you want more quickly. If you have any queries contact : enquiries@pseltd.com +44 (0) 1235 433201
Quick search
The 'Quick search' is the small box that appears at the top right hand corner of every web page and searches the whole site for relevant information. REMEMBER: You need to be logged into a secure area to be able to search it.
Using keywords in the Quick Search
To enter keywords, type each word into the box with a space separating each one.
For example: food science will find all pages containing all of the keywords, both "black" AND "white".
Finding exact phrases
To group words together as a phrase, put double-quotes around the phrase.
For example: "black and white" will find pages containing the whole phrase "black and white".
Using wildcards
Wildcards use an asterisk * to search for variations on a word.
For example: GM* will find GM, GMOs, GME and GMS.
Submitting your search
When you have entered your search keywords and made your other selections, click Go.
Advanced Search
Don't be afraid of the Advanced Search – it is easy to use and can really help you find what you want. Basically, unlike the Quick Search, it allows you to target or refine your search. You don't have to be a search expert to make it work, simply use it to combine a number of searching criteria.
Entering your search keywords
You have the following four options:
1) All of the words
This will find any information that contains ALL of the keywords. This is the default selection.
For example: black white will find documents containing both "black" and "white" but not necessarily as the phrase "black white".
2) Any of the words
For example: black white will find documents containing either "black" or "white" or both.
3)Exact phrase
For example: "black and white" will find documents containing the whole phrase "black and white".
4)Boolean search
This allows you to carry out more complex searches, using for example, brackets, AND, OR, NOT and NEAR to build an expression for your search.
For example:
black AND (white or grey) will find documents containing "black" and either the word "white" or "grey".
black OR white will find information containing either "black" or "white" plus the whole phrase "black and white".
black AND NOT white will find all information containing "black" but not "white".
You can use the minus sign (-) in place of AND NOT but make sure you don't leave a space after the "-".
(black OR white) AND grey -red will find all documents mentioning either "black" or "white" which also mention "grey", but any documents mentioning "red" would be excluded.
black NEAR white will rank documents where the keywords appear close to each other higher than those where they appear in separate sentences.
Targetting your search
Selecting "Title ONLY " or "Title and Summary ONLY "
Usually you'll want to search for your keywords anywhere in the title, summary and full text of the document. However, if you are getting too many results, you can limit the search to look in the "Title ONLY". A search on "Title ONLY" will reduce your results but it may make them more relevant to the keywords you are searching for.