User's Guide & Site Help

5.3. Main Search

You can get to the Main Search page from the Advanced Search drop-down menu in the Site Navigation bar.

search menu drop down

Compared with Quick Search, the Main Search page offers more control over the results and range of your search. The variety of fields will help you to optimize and tailor results.

main search form

The fields that can be searched include:

Full Text: By default, the Full Text field on this form searches all site content, excluding bible passages.
Include bible texts: This box must be checked to include bible passages in your full text search.
Entry/Chapter Title: The title is the name of the piece of content, not the title of the entire work. This refers to the title of all content types, from articles to images.
Entry Author: This field can be used to locate entries or chapters written by a particular author.

5.3.1 Refine by Topic

Beneath the Full Text, Entry/Chapter Title and Entry Author fields is an extensive list of Topics. Topical categories have been assigned to all Reference content, Images, and Maps on the site by our editorial staff.

Check a box next to any of the eleven general Topic areas such as Archaeology or Science and Medicine to limit search results to those associated with your chosen topic(s). For even more refinement, click the plus icon beside a general topic and select a subtopic. Multiple topics may be selected.