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Website Search Help

What is a search?
A Search is used to find information quickly, without having to navigate through layers of irrelevant pages. If you have a basic idea of the sort of information you require, you supply that to the search engine (using the web form). The search engine then checks each of the pages it indexes and returns any that match the information provided. The user then performs the last step by choosing the best pages from amongst those returned by the search.
How do I search?
You type in a keyword or keywords for the search engine to look for.
Do you have any advice or tips for searching?
If you use a single word, all documents that contain that word will be returned.
If you use multiple words separated with spaces or "and", then only documents that contain all those words will be returned. The order and placement of the words don't matter.
If you separate your search words with commas, or "or", then any document that contains at least one of those words will be returned. The order and placement of the words do not matter.
If you surround a search phrase in quotes (") then only documents that contain exactly the phrase between the quotes will be returned. Capitalisation is still ignored but punctuation is included.
All these methods can be combined to make more complex searches.
Searches are case insensitive. That means Capitalisation doesn't matter.
Why didn't it find anything?
Sometimes the information is simply not there.
There is a typo. Check the spelling of all words, including looking for American/Australian spelling variations.
The Search words are too specific. A very complex search that includes many words that must all be present may be too strict. Try taking out a few terms.
You are looking for a precise phrase. Looking for a precise phrase may be restricting the search too much unless you are certain that the phrase would be used in exactly that wording. Try a different wording or try relaxing the search to just the key words in the phrase.
The search zone is limited. If you've limited the search to a specific area of the university, maybe information of the type you're after exists elsewhere. Try expanding your search to include a wider selection. If the information you require is not specific to Griffith University, consider searching outside of Griffith (a full internet search).
By default, a Griffith Web search only matches your search words to certain key words specified within a document. A 'Full Text' search reaches beyond that to search every word of a document. Try a 'Full Text' search.
I'm still having dificulty; is there anything else I can try?
Expand acronyms if you have used them.
Try some other words or phrases that might describe what you are after. Sometimes the author of a document might use different terminology and sometimes the subject may not be mentioned, even though the document is all about that thing. Try a few other, related terms and see if they turn anything up.
Try browsing from the homepage - there are pages tailored to students, staff, visitors to the University, etc.
I am STILL having trouble finding anything!
Try a full internet search or a search at another site.
Consider alternatives; e.g. going to the library for its databases and books; contact colleagues or supervisors.
How do I find what I want amongst all these results?
A web search engine often returns a lot of unrelated or poorly related material. The last step in searching the web for information is always performed by the person doing the searching. One must choose the truly relevant pages from those that the search engine returns. The power of the search engine can minimise your job.
Use the page summary returned with each result to decide whether that page is likely to contain the information you are seeking.
Try a Keyword search. Content searches often turn up numerous pages that are not relevant, even though they contain your search term. A keyword search matches only those documents for which the document author indicates your search terms are relevant.
Add more words to your search to refine and improve the results.
Remember that the results are displayed in a rough order of "best match first". If you haven't found useful material in the first 10 matches, try a better search.
If you're getting a lot of unrelated material of a certain kind, try using the "not" operator to chop them out.
Try restricting the search to only relevant web servers.

Contacts

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Mobile Phonebook

A mobile phonebook for WAP compatible phones is available at www3.griffith.edu.au

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