Searching the site

Updated: September 2007

What's New in Searching CQ.com

Full-text searching on CQ.com has been improved to behave more like many other web search engines. Complex Boolean-based connector searching is still supported, but a simple search is the default.

Case Insensitive

Search is no longer case-sensitive. A search on: MaRiNE will now find: marines, Marine, etc.

Default Search for All Words

When multiple words are entered, documents with all the words in them will be returned. This is different from previous versions of search on CQ.com, where adjacent words were automatically interpreted as a phrase.

Phrases Identified by Quotation Marks

To find a phrase, put quotation marks around the words you enter.

Automatic Phrase Identification for compound words

Some punctuation characters - such as the hyphen (-) and apostrophe (') - serve as phrase connectors. Phrase connectors work like quotes because they join your search words in the same way double quotes join your search words. For example, the search: health-care is treated as a phrase search without being enclosed in quotes, and finds documents with health-care, health care, and healthcare.

Stemming always on unless explicitly turned off

Stemming works inside and outside phrases. A search on: income taxes also finds: income tax; a search on woman speaker also finds: women speakers.

Bill Number Identification

Bill Numbers are identified in a search, and documents CQ has identified as related to that bill are returned. If you really just want to search for the string HR4, for example, put it in quotes and treat it as a phrase.

Plus Sign turns off stemming, case insensitivity, and stop word exclusion

Plus sign before a word restricts the search to exactly that word. It turns stemming off, makes the search case sensitive and allows searching of stop words. To search for: AIDS, use the plus sign: +AIDS . The plus sign works within phrases. The connector no longer works.

Minus sign synonym for NOT

Minus sign (-) is available as a synonym for the NOT connector.

STOP Words excluded form searches

STOP words - be... from... is... of... that... the... this... to... was... what... when... with (and their stemmed variants, like: been... are... were) - are now excluded from searches unless included in phrases or preceded by a plus (+) sign. E.g., a search on: head of state finds hits on: head and state; but a search on: “head of state” finds the exact phrase: head of state; a search on: head +of state finds documents that mention all 3 words.

"Did you Mean? misspelling/typo correction

When a search includes common typos and misspellings,CQ.com will now provide a "did you mean" link offeringr corrections editorially identified based on years of experience with searches.

Word Search Boxes

Radio buttons offering a choice of All Words, Any Words, or Exact Phrase accompany each word search box. Explicit connectors in a search - AND, OR, NOT - continue to be supported.

An exclusion box accompanies each word search box and offers an explicit way to do a NOT search

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Searching the Site

You can search CQ.com and its data sources in two ways. You can perform searches from the Search boxes that appear in the upper left corner throughout most of the site or you can conduct searches from the Search tab.

Searches from the Search boxes let you search specific types of content - such as CQ news from the News tab or bill titles/text and committee reports from the Bills tab - typically by word or bill number (or by member name from the Members tab). You can also perform a "global" search of the entire site - all the sources to which you have access - by clicking the radio button at the top of the Search box.

The Search tab offers a Basic Search form, with options to search sources by words, bill numbers, lists of words or bills, as well as by "items added", which lets you limit your searches to content added to CQ.com during a particular time period. There are also Advanced Search forms for each of the sources, with specialized, more refined search options, which you may access by clicking the checkbox next to the source and then clicking the ADVANCED button at the bottom of the screen.

Note: Searches are case sensitive. When entering words or phrases in the search field, use only same-case text - either all lowercase or all UPPERCASE. Mixed-case searches find only exact mixed-case matches, whereas same-case searches find matches involving any case.

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Global Site Search

Global Search allows you to search across all data sources to quickly access all documents relating to your issues. The Global Search is available at the top-left of the screen.

How to Search

Select a Global Search of a particular type of content (such as "News" or "Bills") or of the entire site. Then type the specifics of your search in one or both of the blank fields: "Words," "Bill Nums" (short for "Bill Numbers"). (See "Format Tips for Better Searches" for hints on the most effective ways to construct your search.)

  1. Click the "Go" button.

    Your search results will appear in a hit list on the Search Results page. This page will indicate how many documents were found for each available data source. Clicking on the data source will narrow your search to results from just that single source.
  2. Select the items you wish to review further by clicking on the check box next to the document or by clicking "Select All."
  3. Once you select the items you wish to view, you may view the full text of each or view a subset of documents containing only the items you selected:

    Note: You may change the order in which documents are displayed by selecting from the available sort options at the bototm of the screen. You may also Modify your search, create a New search or Save your search as an Alert by clicking any of the links in the upper corner.
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Search Tab

The Search tab allows you to search across any combination of selected data sources to quickly access all documents relating to your issues.

How to Search

  1. Choose any combination of available sources. If you need more information about a specific source, you may click the name of the source for a description. Note: You may choose your own sources or CQ's groupings by clicking the "Select All," "News Sources," "Bill Sources" or "Committee Sources" links.
  2. Enter word(s), bill number(s) and/or date(s). You may also select from a Word List or Bill List that you have previously created.
  3. If you need more search options, click "Advanced." Options vary depending on the sources selected; click source name for a list of fields you can search. (See Advanced Search.) If you select multiple sources, the Advanced Search form will show only the search options that all of your sources have in common.
  4. Click "Search."
    The search results will appear in a hit list. The top of your hit list indicates how many items were found for each data source.
  5. Select the items you wish to review further by clicking each checkbox or by clicking "Select All."
    Once you select items you wish to view, you may view an aggregated display of full text - or a hit list - of all items selected.

    Note: You may change the order in which documents are displayed by selecting from the available sort options at the bottom of the screen. You may also Modify your search, create a New search or Save your search as an Alert by clicking any of the links in the upper left corner.
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Advanced Search

The Advanced Search form takes into account the data sources you have selected and creates a search form offering only the options that all of the sources have in common. If you need more detailed search options, you can limit the number of data sources searched. Keep in mind that every field you use to search is narrowing your search. If you use a word or phrase and bills, you will find only documents that pertain to those bills AND contain those words.

Click on "Format Tip" under each Advanced Search option for the best suggestions on how to enter your search criteria.

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Searching Previous Congresses

The CQ.com Search tab and the "Search" boxes in the upper left corner of the News, Bills, Committees and Members tabs allow CQ.com subscribers to search for information only for the current Congress. The "Search HealthBeat" box gives CQ HealthBeat subscribers similar ability to search for current Congress information. Searches for information for a previous Congress or for multiple congresses should be done using the Advanced Search form.

Note: Federal Register documents are organized by calendar year rather than by Congress. As a result, the CQ.com Search tab and the various "Search" boxes allow users to search Federal Register document published only in the current calendar year. Searches for Federal Register documents published in a previous year or over a multi-year range should be done using the Advanced Search form.

To access the Advanced Search form from the Search tab, click on the "Advanced" button located near the bottom of the screen. To access it from any of the "Search" boxes, click on the "More Options" link located near the bottom of each box.

On the Advanced Search form, use the "Search in" box to select the Congress (or year) in which you wish to search. To search across all congresses (or all years), select "All of the Above."

To search in several but not all congresses (or years), first use the "Search in" box to select "All of the Above" and then use "Items Added" to select the desired date range, For example, to search in both the 107th and 108th congresses, select "All of the Above" in "Search in" and From: 1/1/01 and To: 12/31/04 in "Items Added."

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MyCQ Tab

Use the MyCQ tab to get an overview of the entire CQ site. The MyCQ tab contains most all of CQ's information sources, cross-indexed for quick retrieval.

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Jump to a Publication

The "Jump to a Publication," drop-down menu in the upper right-hand corner of the screen, takes you directly to any specific data source. Some jump-to data sources are searchable for specific criteria, while others display listings of documents to browse.

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