Search Tool help

The Search Tool will find all pages at this site that contain key words you designate. This method of searching is sometimes called content searching.

About content searching

Use the Search Tool to find pages you want to see based on their content. Content searches are different from searches that use menus, tables-of-contents, and other navigation techniques.

More

—tip— Search Tool Many pages at this site are not included in the menus or tables of contents, which contain references to "high level" pages only. Use the Search Tool to find any page at this site that contains key words you designate. Visit the Search Tool Page: click here.

How to search using the search tool

A keyword is a word consisting of a string of characters. A phrase is a sequence of one or more key words in a specific order; together, the words express an idea. Keywords and phrases describe the text and ideas contained in pages that you might want to visit.

When searching, the Search Tool looks for a match between a keyword or phrase contained in a page and the keyword or phrase you specify in the Search for box. If it finds a match, it presents you with a citation consisting of a few of the words in the page that surround the matching keyword or phrase. The citation also contains a hyperlink to the page. Click the hyperlink to see the page.

how to conduct a search

Here are the basic steps you take to conduct a search. Steps you can take to refine and improve searching are explained later on this page:

• Visit the Search Tool page.
• Think of one or more important and meaningful words (keywords) that convey the central idea, subject, or topic you want to explore.
• Type the keyword or keywords in the box on the page that follows the words Search for.
• Check the Match option of your choice:
  • Check any search words if you want to find any page that contains any or all of the key words you typed.
  • Check all search words if you only want to find pages that contain all of the key words you typed. (All is the default).
• In the Category dropdown, select the category of your choice or accept the default, ALL.
• Click Submit or press ENTER on your keyboard and the search will begin.

about search results

After you click the Submit button, the search will run. Results are presented on the Search Tool page:

• Primary search results consist of a list of citations, one citation for each of the pages that matched the keywords you typed into the Search for box and the other search criteria you selected.
• Secondary search results consist of information about the search.

More About Citations

When the search is competed, a list of page citations will appear. Citations are references to and about the pages that contain the keyword or keywords you typed. A citation does not contain the pages themselves.

Each citation displays:

• The keywords you typed, highlighted in yellow.
• About 150 words of the text that appears on the cited page in the vicinity of the highlighted keyword you entered in the Search for box. Read this text to learn more about what the page contains.
• A hyperlink to the page itself. If you want to visit the page, click the hyperlink and the page will open.
• A citation will show links to off-site pages—pages not at Electricka's site—if they fall within the 150 words that surround the highlighted keyword on the cited page. You will see the links in the citation, but clicking will not open them.
• When you click the name of a cited page, it will open.

Searching By category

The Category dropdown, mentioned above, is the box labeled Category that is situated below the Search for box on the Search Tool page. The Category dropdown contains a list of search categories you can use to narrow a search. Click the down arrow at the right side of the box to see the list of categories; the list will drop.

A category is the name of a subject or section of Electricka's web site. For example, each muse is a search category; products is another kind of search category.

When you search by category, you restrict your search to the pages at Electricka's web site that belong to that category. For example, if you search by a muse name, you restrict your search to pages that belong to that muse and to no other. The list of citations resulting from your search will consist of pages that belong to that muse that match the keywords you entered in the Search for box; pages belonging to other muses will not be represented in the list.

When you narrow your search by using a category, you save time and effort and you increase the chances of finding what you want.

To search using categories:

• Start a search as described above on this page.
• Before you click Submit, open the Category dropdown and look for a category that fits your search objectives:
  • Select ALL if you want to search all the pages at Electricka's web site. ALL is the default.
  • If you find a narrower category that meets your search objectives, select it.
  • Select ALL Other if none of the other categories on the list fit your interests and you don't want to search all the pages at Electricka's web site.

searching for exact phrases

Two or more keywords arranged in a specific order make up an exact phrase. For example, living trust is an exact phrase. Living trust has a unique meaning that differs from living alone or trust alone.

The phrase living trust is not the same as the two separate keywords living and trust, and will not find the same pages. Typing living trust in the Search for box will only find pages that contain the phrase living trust; it will not find pages that contain the words living and/or trust unless they are both placed next to each other on the page in order. The keyword living will not find a page that only contains the phrase living trust; the keyword trust will not find a page that only contains trust.

To search for keywords in a specific order, surround the keywords with double quotation marks. For example, typing ""living trust"" in the Search for box will yield pages that contain the phrase living trust.

about class searches

A class search is a type of search that uses the Search Tool to find all pages belonging to a particular class or group of features. When you conduct a class search, you are asking to see all the pages that are members of that class, regardless of muse membership or other consideration.

Another way to think of a class search is to visualize the images you see at the right side of many of Electricka's pages. Each different image represents a particular class or group of pages. Note that some pages may belong to more than one class. A page that belongs to more than one class will bear more than one image.

Types of class search

Electricka has defined three such search classes, each denoted by one of the three different kinds of images:

1. ByLine feature, denoted by:
    

   ByLine

   About ByLines

   bylineimage

   Pages belonging to the ByLine class have one thing in common: they are all ByLine features.

    

2. Arts Information Feature, denoted by:

   Arts Information About Arts Information artsinfoimage

   Pages belonging to the ByLine class have one thing in common: they are all Arts Information features.

    

3. ETAF-Amazon Association, denoted by:
    [ETAFHomePages/products/etaf_amazon_collection/etaf_amazon_collection_includes/etaf_amazon_collection_image_include.htm]

   Pages belonging to the ETAF-Amazon class have one thing in common: they all contain references to books, CDs, DVDs, or other arts-related items that are members of the ETAF-Amazon Collection.

—tip— class searches are powerful When you conduct a class search, in effect you are searching for all pages that contain the image that represents the class. The result will show you every page at Electricka's web site that belongs to that class. For example: To find every page that contains references to books, CDs, DVDs, or other arts-related items that are members of the ETAF-Amazon Collection, conduct a class search for the ETAF-Amazon Association.

• For more information on each of the three different kinds of classes, click the appropriate text at the bottom of the corresponding image, above.
• For more information on how to navigate for each of the three different kinds of classes, click the name of the class in the To Do list at the right side of this page.

Conducting a class search

Search for all the pages that belong to a class the same way you would search for any keyword:

• Follow the procedures outlined above on this page in the section called, How To Search Using The Search Tool:
• In the Category dropdown list, select ALL if not already selected (required).
• Type one and only one of the following keywords into the Search for box:
  • To find citations for all ByLine pages, type the keyword bylineimage.
  • To find citations for all Arts Information pages, type the keyword artsinfoimage.
  • To find citations for all pages bearing references to books, DVDs, CDs, and other items that belong to the ETAF-Amazon Collection, type the keyword collectionimage.

Type no other keywords into the Search for box other than these character strings.

NOTE: The search will produce a list of citations for the pages that belong to the class you selected. Examine the names of pages in the citation to decide which page or pages to visit. The content description in the citation will not be useful.

how to combine key words for searching

As already noted above, when searching the Search Tool finds a page if contains the key words or phrases that you specify in the Search for box. When deciding if there is a match between the keyword or phrase you specify and the words or phrases in a page, it obeys the following rules:

• If any search words is checked and you enter more than one key word in the Search for box, it finds all pages that contain at least one of the key words, regardless of word order.
• If all search words is checked and you enter more than one key word in the Search for box, it finds all pages that contain all the key words, regardless of word order.
• If you specify a phrase or phrases (by placing place double quotation marks around more than one keyword) in the Search for box and any search words is checked, it finds all pages that contain at least one of the key words, regardless of phrase order.
• If you specify a phrase or phrases (by placing place double quotation marks around more than one keyword) in the Search for box and all search words is checked, it finds all pages that all of the keywords and/or phrases, regardless of keyword or phrase order.
• Combinations of keywords and phrases in the Search for box follow the same rules.

When examining a page for a word or phrase match, the Search Tool must decide where each word or phrase in the page begins and ends. To avoid search mistakes, it is necessary that you enter keywords or phrases in the Search for box in the same way that the Search Tool will look for them when it examines the contents of pages. This means that you must specify the start and end of words the way the Search Tool does.

The Search Tool identifies the start and end of a word the way you or I might, by looking for a space before and after. Thus, if it sees two adjacent words, heaven and sent, it recognizes them as the two words heaven and sent.

The way the Search Tool recognizes compound words is more complex. The Search Tool identifies multiple adjacent words in pages as:

• One word—if a word in a page is joined to another by an underscore. Thus, heaven_sent is considered to be one word. If you enter heaven and/or sent in the Search for box, the Search Tool will not find a page if it contains heaven_sent.
• Different words—if the adjacent words in a page are connected by dots, hyphens, apostrophes, hash sign, dollar sign, or comma. Thus, if the Search Tool finds words joined as follows: heaven sent, heaven.sent, heaven...sent, heaven-sent, heaven'sent, heaven#sent, heaven$sent, or heaven,sent in a page, it will identify the these words as two different words, namely heaven and sent. If you enter heaven or sent in the Search for box, the Search Tool will find a page if it contains either one of these two words embedded in the combination.
• One phrase—if 1) the adjacent words in a page are separated by any of these connectors: spaces, dots, hyphens, apostrophes, hash signs, dollar signs, or commas, and 2) the keywords in the Search for box are enclosed in double quotation marks ("" ""). Thus, if you enter ""heaven sent"" in the Search for box, the Search Tool will find a page if it contains the two words, heaven and sent in that order, if they are separated by a space. It will not find the page if you enter ""heaven-sent"" or if the two words heaven and sent are connected by any other symbol listed above.

Please make sure you anticipate the rules for recognizing compound words that are followed by the Search Tool when you create key words and phrases for searching.

searching with Wildcards

The meaningful word you enter when you search Electricka's pages may be a keyword or a wildcard.

You create a wildcard from a keyword by choosing a keyword and then modifying it before you enter it in the search for box below on this page. Your modification causes the Search Tool to ignore certain characters in the keyword according to established rules.

About conducting wildcard Searches

When the Search Tool searches for keywords or wildcards, it looks for occurrences of the keywords or wildcards you have specified in Electricka's pages. When it finds a word on a page that matches a keyword or wildcard, it decides that the page is relevant to your interests and reports it as as such:

• When searching for a keyword, the Search Tool looks for an exact, character-by-character match between a word on a page and the keyword you specified.
• When searching for a wildcard, the Search Tool looks for an approximate match between a word on a page and the keyword.
• The Search Tool knows the rules that you used to change the keyword into a wildcard. This knowledge allows it to detect other words on the page that also are acceptable to you and to treat these words as the equivalent of a keyword match.

About constructing wildcards

To construct a wildcard from a keyword:

• Replace one or more of the characters at the start and/or end of the keyword with a '*' character. This tells the Search Tool to find a page if it contains any word with the character string you entered that falls between the first "*" character and the last "*" character. The nature and number of the characters replaced by either "*" character do not matter.
  • For example: If you search for *ick*, the Search Tool will FIND pages that contain the word Electricka or the word trick. Many additional word combinations will be FOUND, if they are in pages.
  • For Example: If you search for *le*ick*, the Search Tool will FIND pages that contain the word Electricka or the word trick. Many additional word combinations will be FOUND, if they are in pages.
• Replace one or more of the characters anywhere in the keyword with a "?" character. This tells the Search Tool to find a page if it contains any word with the character in the character position(s) with a "?."
  • For example: If you change the keyword Electricka to ?lectri?ka, the Search Tool will FIND pages that contain the words Electricka or Electrika. Many additional word combinations will be FOUND, if they are in pages.
• The Search Tool will also accept and process wildcards that contain combinations of "*" characters and "?" characters.