Search Tips - make the most of The Gerard Manley Hopkins Archive

These tips will help you find what you are looking for. Using some common, simple search syntax can dramatically improve search results - expecially in a large, specialist Archive such as the GM Hopkins Archive.

Examples of how to improve your searches

• Check spellings
  Sounds obvious, but you would be surprized at how many mis-spellings are entered in the search. Results are almost certain to be disappointing. Make sure your search terms are spelled correctly - or, exactly as in the Hopkins text.

  Our search engine will attempt to find words that sound similar to your search terms - but it is always best to spell the search terms correctly.

• Use multiple words
  Not much point in searching here for 'Hopkins' - you would get tens of thousands of search results which is unhelpful. Be specific. As specific as possible. For example a search for 'the caged skylark' will give different results to a search for 'the sea and the skylark'.

  Multiple search terms will return more refined results than a search from a single word.

• Use similar words
  The more similar words you use in a search, the more relevant results will be to the words that you are searching for.

• Use appropriate capitalization
  Capitalize proper nouns such as the name of a person.

• And remember ...
  If in doubt, remember, lower case words will match ALL examples of that word. Expect, for example, a searhc for 'binsey poplars' to return also, 'Binsey poplars'

  Use quotation marks [" "] to force exact matches
  For example, search for "terrible sonnets".

• Use Boolean plus (+) or minus (-) operators.
  Precede a search term or phrase with a plus (+) sign to indicate the precise search term must appear in a search result.

  Precede a search term with a minus (-) sign to indicate an undesirable search term or phrase that you wish to exclude from the search results.

  For example, searching for +sonnets - terrible will return results that are about sonnets, but not about the terrible sonnets.

Happy browsing in The Gerard Manley Hopkins Archive!

Read list of the 10 most popular searches in September 2004