WebSideStory Search (formerly Atomz.com) searches all of the pages on the Information Research site, with the exception of the editorial pages, such as that devoted to describing the Copyright policy. As a result, entering a search term such as retrieval will result in finding not only the papers concerned with that subject, but also the contents lists pages where the papers are listed, if the term occurs in the title. You can ignore, therefore, any retrieved item with a header line such as
     21. Information Research: an electronic journal since these identify the contents list pages.

If you constrain your search carefully, you can get useful results. The more you can limit the number of items returned by careful definition of the search task, the more likely you are to be able to find what you may be looking for. This page adapted, with permission, from Atomz.com's own search tips page, provides some basic guidance on using the search engine's features. To perform a search, type what you are looking for into the search box:

	Check spelling
	Use multiple words Example: information technology management
	Use similar words Example: library librarianship
	Use appropriate capitalization Example: Department of Information Systems
	Use quotation marks Example: "MS in Information Systems"
	Use plus (+) or minus (-) Example: +"information management"

Check spelling
Make sure your search terms are spelled correctly. The search engine will attempt to find words that sound similar your search terms, but it is always best to try to spell the search terms correctly.

Example:

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Use multiple words
Use multiple words when performing your search. The search results will return more refined results from several words than from a single word. For example, typing management information systems will yield more relevant results than typing only management. (Keep in mind, relevant results are returned even if they do not contain all query terms.)

Example:

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Use similar words
The more similar words you use in a search, the more relevant results you will get back.

Example:

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Use appropriate capitalization
Capitalize proper nouns. Lowercase words will match any case. For example, typing mis will return all documents containing the words mis, MiS, and SQL. However, typing MIS will only search for pages using that abbreviation

Example:

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Use quotation marks
Use quotation marks to find words which must appear adjacent to each other, for example, "Management Information Systems" Otherwise, the search results will include the word management, information, , and the word systems, but not necessarily in that order. The words may appear anywhere, and in any order, within the document.

Example:

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Use plus (+) or minus (-)
Use a plus sign when your search term or phrase must appear in the search results. Use a minus sign to indicate undesirable term(s). The plus sign tells the search engine that a certain word or phrase is required in the search results, and a minus sign indicates that a word or phrase must be absent in the search results.

Note: A phrase must be contained within quotation marks. Leave no spaces between the plus or minus sign and the term.

Example:

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This page is maintained by Professor Tom Wilson. Last revised 29 January, 2006.