How to Use ThinkQuest Search

Query Keywords

Search string can be a sequence of keywords, each keyword being separated by one or more blank spaces. All keywords will be treated as case-insensitive. The operator All words/Any word is used to compose the keyword for the search condition of your query.

For example, if you enter parallel systems and choose All words (by default), the query will search for all documents containing both parallel and systems, provided that the matching option is selected as Match (by default).

Domain

Currently there are two databases available: TQ Proposals are original proposals submitted by each participating team; ANS Web Pages are all ThinkQuest HTML pages found on the ThinkQuest and Advanced Network & Services Site (http://io.advanced.org/thinkquest/). The search domain can be on either the Document or Title, or a List of all the documents can be viewed. You can also limit the search to a particular ThinkQuest category, one of the five pre-defined categories. When list option is selected the input keyword field and all other options, except category and hits/page, are ignored. When you choose to search in the ANS Web Pages, selection of any category will be ignored.

Document

Search text in the Document paragraph.

Title

Search only in the Title text.

List

List all documents in the database, one subset a page as determined by the Hits/Page option.

List

This allows you to find a particular proposal with a 4-digit team number.

Options

Word search options allow the keyword(s) you entered to be combined and extended.

Match/Not match

This option searches all documents that either Match or Not match your keywords (and extensions, if any).

Keyword

The original keyword(s) you entered will be directly used in the search. They are not extended.

Forward Stemming

This option matches all the strings which has the keyword at it's beginning. E.g.: implement will be stemmed to implement, implementation, implemented

Reverse Stemming

This option matches all the strings which has the keyword at it's end. E.g: ement will be stemmed to element,implement,improvement,etc.

Fuzzy Match

This is designed to pick out typical data input errors such as mistypes and phonetical misspellings. It will then perform the search on the 6 closest matched words. E.g.:Smith will be expanded to Smit,Smiths,Smooth,etc.

Soundex Expansion

This option attemps to match words for which you do not know the correct spelling, words that have been entered into the database with incorrect spelling.

Hits/Page

The number of documents to be shown per page can be set using the Hits/Page option. The total number of documents that matched the query is also displayed. There will be Next and previous to allow you to navigate the query results in pages.

New Search/Refined Search

If you searched in Document, you can Refine your previous search so that the next search will be only in all the query results returned from your previous search. By default, New search allows you to start a new query whose domain is the whole database.

Web Access Statistics

Give up-to-date database access information from this Web interface. It lists summery access data ordered by Date, Web browser types and details all visits history in time, client host name and web browser.


NPAC, Syracuse University, G. Cheng T. Pulikal and P. Sokilowski.