You can turn a simple query into a complex query – thereby narrowing your search results – by adding more search terms and operators to your search expression.
Because queries can be very complex and can use several different operators, there needs to be a way to evaluate expressions unambiguously. This is done through the use of operator precedence, which is a way of specifying which operators and expressions are evaluated first, second, and so on. In the list above, the precedence of the operators is from first to last.
The subsections that follow will show you how to use a variety of characters and operators to narrow your search by specifying more precisely what you’re looking for.
The procedure for designing and executing a search query with operators is as follows:
Step 1. Decide what words you want to search for in your query.
Step 2. Determine the relationship among those words in your query and add the appropriate operators to narrow your search, being mindful of the precedence of the operators.
Step 3. Click on the Search button to execute your search and return a search results page.
The table below shows several examples of search queries using zero, one or more operators. Note that:
Each operator will be defined and explained in the following subsections.
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Query (Words and Operators)
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Retrieves
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Notes
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hearing
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Documents with the word "hearing" anywhere in the document
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"congressional hearing"
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Documents with the word "congressional" directly followed by the word "hearing"
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congressional adj hearing
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Documents with the word "congressional" directly followed by the word "hearing"
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"ways and means"
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Documents with the words "ways", "and", and "means" in the specified order, right next to each other
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Since “and” is part of the phrase in quotes, it is treated as part of the phrase instead of being treated as an operator.
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ways "and" means
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Documents with the words "ways", "and", and "means" anywhere in the document
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Since “and” is in quotes, it is treated as a phrase instead of being treated as an operator.
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congressional hearing
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Documents with both the word "congressional" and "hearing" anywhere inside the document
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congressional and hearing
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Documents with both the word "congressional" and "hearing" anywhere inside the document
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congressional or executive
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Documents with either the word "congressional" or "executive" or both
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(congressional or executive) and hearing
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Documents with both words “congressional” and “hearing,” as well as with both words “executive” and “hearing”
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title:hearing
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Documents where the word "hearing" occurs in the title of the document
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title:environment and member:mikulski
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Documents with "environment" in the title and "mikulski" in the member field
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title:(hearing or meeting)
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Documents with either "hearing" or "meeting" in the title field
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title:chesapeake bay
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Documents with the word "chesapeake" in the metadata title field and the word "bay" in the document
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title:"chesapeake bay"
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Documents with the phase "chesapeake bay" in the metadata title field
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title:(chesapeake bay)
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Documents with both the word "chesapeake" and the word "bay" in the metadata title field, but not necessarily in order
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title:chesapeake and title:bay
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Documents with both the word "chesapeake" and the word "bay" in the metadata title field, but not necessarily in order
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title:chesapeake title:bay
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Documents with both the word "chesapeake" and the word "bay" in the metadata title field, but not necessarily in order
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congressional not report
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Documents with the word "congressional" but not the word "report"
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congressional -report
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Documents with the word "congressional" but not the word "report"
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The "-" operator can be used in place of the not operator. It must prefix the word (or expression) without any intervening spaces.
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congressional and not report
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Documents with the word “congressional” but not the word “report”
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The operators "and not" behaves the same as "not."
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congressional not (committee report)
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Documents with the word "congressional" but not if they contain both the words "committee" and "report"
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congressional not (committee or meeting)
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Documents with “congressional” but not “committee”; documents with “congressional” but not “meeting”
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congressional -(committee or meeting)
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Documents with “congressional” but not “committee”; documents with “congressional” but not “meeting”
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The "-" operator works with parenthetical expressions as well.
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representative near/10 cardin
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Documents with the word "representative" within 10 words of the word "cardin"
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representative near cardin
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Documents with words "cardin", "near", and "representative" anywhere inside the document
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The term "near" is only an operator when it has the /# as the suffix otherwise it is treated just like a regular word.
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representative before/10 cardin
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Documents with the word "representative" within 10 words and before the word "cardin"
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representative before cardin
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Documents with words "cardin", "before", and "representative" anywhere inside the document
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The term "before" is only an operator when it has the /# as the suffix otherwise it is treated just like a regular word.
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+cardin congressional committee
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Documents with words "cardin", "congressional", and "committee" anywhere inside the document with documents having more hits on "cardin" being given higher relevancy than documents with more hits on "congressional" or "committee"
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++cardin congressional +committee
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Documents with words "cardin", "congressional", and "committee" anywhere inside the document with documents having more hits on "cardin" being given the highest relevancy, followed by documents having more hits on “committee” given the next highest relevancy, and documents having more hits on “congressional” given lower relevancy
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publishdate:range(2006-01-01,2006-07-01)
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Documents with an issue date from January 1, 2006 through July 1, 2006
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publishdate:range(2006,2006)
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Documents with an issue date from Jan 1, 2006 through December 31, 2006
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publishdate:range(2006-01-01,)
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Documents with all issue dates after and including 2006-01-01
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congress:range(100,105)
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Documents for all congresses with numbers 100 up to and including 105
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congress:range(,105)
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Documents with all congresses up to and including the 105th
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congress:range(105,)
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Documents with all congresses after and including the 105th
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(Bill and Clinton) before/100 (Hillary and Clinton)
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No documents retrieved
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This will return an "unsupported proximity operator" error. The "and" operator (implied or otherwise) can not be nested within a proximity operator.
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(Bill adj Clinton) before/100 (Hillary adj Clinton)
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Documents with the name “Bill Clinton” within 100 words of the name “Hillary Clinton”
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A successful version of the above query. Note that all operators within a proximity expression must themselves be proximity operators.
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not Bill before/100 Clinton
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No documents retrieved
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Will also return an "unsupported proximity operator" error. The "not" operator is not allowed to be within a proximity expression.
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congress*
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Documents which contain words which start with "congress" (such as "congressional", "congressman", etc.)
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con*al
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Documents which start with "con" and end in "al", such as "congressional" and "confessional"
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capitali?e
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Documents where certain characters can be any character in the word. In this case, example matches include documents which contain "capitalize" or "capitalise"
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