How to Search for an IEEE Conference

To do a basic search, enter some search terms. For example:

• Prague
• Conference
• Sustainability

This will search for documents containing the words Prague, Conference or Sustainability.

Boolean operators allow terms to be combined for more advanced searches. The terms AND, +, OR, NOT and - are supported.

OR

The OR operator links two terms and finds a matching document if either of the terms exist in a document. Note, the symbol || can be used in place or the word OR. To search for documents that contain either "sustainable energy" or just "wind energy" use the query:

"sustainable energy" OR "wind energy"

or

"sustainable energy" || "wind energy"

Note: OR is the default search term, so the following search is equivalent to both of the previous examples:

"sustainable energy" "wind energy"

AND

The AND operator matches documents where both terms in the text of the document. The symbol && can be used in place of the word AND. This is a more restrictive search than an OR search. To search for documents that contain "sustainable energy" and "wind energy" use the query:

"sustainable energy" AND "wind energy"

or

"sustainable energy" && "wind energy" 

Search terms can be grouped using parentheses to for sub queries. For example, to find results about conferences on sustainability in different locations, try the following:

(Prague OR London OR Paris) AND sustainability

For more explanation on the OR and AND operators see above in the "Boolean Operators" section.

Wildcard searches permit searches for partial words. The single character wildcard search (?) looks for terms that match that with the single character replaced. For example, to search for "text" or "test" use the search:

te?t

Multiple character wildcard searches (*) looks for 0 or more characters. For example, to search for test, tests or tester, use the search:

test*

Wildcard searches can also be used in the middle of a term.

te*t

Note: * or ? symbols cannot be used as the first character of a search.

Fuzzy searches return results that match search terms exactly as well as results that are close. For example, add a tilde (~) to your search term to find a similar result:

foam~

This search will match terms like foam and roams.

Boosting a search term gives it more weight in the result list. For example, a search for "sustainable energy" might yield results about sustainable technology and energy but not necessarily sustainable energy. In this case,  tell the search engine to weight the word "energy" more heavily:

sustainable energy^4

Phrases can be boosted:

"sustainable energy"^4 wind

Any number can be used to boost the term -- the higher the number the higher the boosting. For example, if the query above still returns too many results, consider increasing the boost value:

"sustainable energy"^6 wind 

The - operator excludes documents that contain the term after the "-" symbol. To search for documents that contain "energy conference" but not "Prague conference" use the query:

    "energy conference" - "Prague conference"