How do I narrow a search on this board???

[Julieofsardis]

How do I do a narrow search for a particular thing? For instance, if I put Excellence in Literature into the search engine, I get every post with the word literature in it. I don't want every post, just those about Excellence in Literature. Is there a way to be more specific?

[Rosie_0801]

You'll have better luck using Google and specifying you want to search welltrainedmind.com

 

:)

Rosie

[Musicmom]

I've been frustrated by this too. You might try putting it in quotes like this: 'Excellence in Literature'. I just tried this and it came up with 3 pages of threads (starting with this one actually...) The only thing is, as you look through the threads, the words aren't bolded in red, so it's hard to find exactly where it's mentioned. In one thread that came up, I couldn't even find a reference to Excellence in Literature at all. On the other hand, several threads came up that have Excellence in Literature in the title, so perhaps that would be a start anyway.

 

HTH

[Janice H]

try finding out if it has a common abbreviated form here on the boards. A couple of years ago some brave poster requested that the first time a subject/publisher/program was mentioned in a post that it be spelled out--no abbreviations. Unfortunately this did not catch on. Stating the full name of a program would improve search results for all inquirers wanting to research past threads.

 

I once searched for days on the old board for a Lori post about geometry. I found it eventually because I knew the poster. However, if there is a misspelling or typo and one doesn't know the poster, the post will be very difficult to locate.

 

"Control F" can help you sift through a page of text for your key word(s).

[Sunshine State Sue]

You'll have better luck using Google and specifying you want to search welltrainedmind.com

:iagree:

 

You might try putting it in quotes like this: 'Excellence in Literature'.

I have found quotes on the search on this board don't help.

 

This is what I do:

go to www.google.com

click on advanced search

type Excellence in Literature (no quotes) in 'this exact wording or phrase

type www.welltrainedmind.com/forums in 'Search within a site or domain'

 

I got 64 hits when I did this.

 

The problem, though, is that they search (for some reason) cached copies, so the posts they bring up might have had EiL in them at one time, but have been changed. I noticed that Melissa B had changed her signature. EiL used to be in there but is no longer. However, once I figured it out, I can see that it's in her signature and I know not to bother looking in that post. I hope that makes sense.

 

HTH!

Edited April 16, 2010 by Sue in St Pete

[Kareni]

I've learned to do as Rosie suggested above. I use the Advanced Search function at Google, and where it says

 

Search within a site or domain:

 

I enter

 

http://www.welltrainedmind.com/forums

 

Regards,

Kareni

[KAR120C]

Once you've found them (I like google for this too), give them all a tag so you can find them again.

[Julieofsardis]

Thanks for the info -- I almost forgot I posted this. I'll give this a shot.