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	Search Operators Chart	What's New? Boolean Search
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Operator	Example(s)	Explanation
word Plural matching is automatic Case insensitive	copyright	Returns all documents containing that word. Note that plural words are matched with singular words automatically (and vice versa). So searching for "contract" includes searching for "contracts" and "strategy" is considered the same as "strategies". Words and phrases are case insensitive. So "bob" is the same as "Bob" or "BOB".
wildcards An asterisk * matches any string (including none) A question mark ? matches any single character	tax*   licen?e	Returns all documents containing a word beginning with tax - this would include: tax, taxes, taxi, taxicab, taxation, taxable, taxing, taxidermy. Note: using the asterisk slows down searching significantly. Returns all documents containing the word "licence" or "license" including the plurals of those words.
phrase No need to use quotes -- phrase is automatic Use double quotes if phrase includes an operator or special word (see explanation at right)	moral rights	Returns all documents containing that phrase. Note that quotes are not necessary, but if included, causes any search operators to be treated as regular words. For example "crime and punishment" (with the quotes) searches for that exact phrase. Without quotes the search will be for all documents with crime that also contain the word punishment (the two words not necessarily appearing next to each other). Note: excessive use of quotation marks slows down the search significantly.
AND Boolean operator Document must have both words (or both phrases) Can be written "AND" or "and" Synonyms: &, &&, +	copyright AND moral rights	Returns all documents that contain both the first term and the second term. A "term" can be a single word or complete phrase (no quotes are necessary around a phrase). Only works when your search is set to Boolean mode.
OR Boolean operator Document can have either word (or either phrase) Can be written "OR" or "or" Synonyms: |, ||, comma	treaties OR conventions	Returns all documents that contain either the first term or the second term or both. A "term" can be a single word or complete phrase. Only works when your search is set to Boolean mode. Most useful when searching for synonyms of words.
NOT Boolean operator Document must have first term. Must not have second Can be written "NOT" or "not"	love NOT war	Finds documents that contain the first word, but do not contain the second. Occassionally useful to exclude irrelevant documents that contain unique words or titles. Only works in Boolean mode. You can also use "and not", for example "love and not war" (without the quotes of course).
NEAR Proximity operator Synonym for w/50 (see below) Words or phrases must be within 50 words of each other Order of terms not important	mabo NEAR queensland	Returns all documents where the first term appears nearby the second term. "Near" corresponds to 50 words, which is intended to be roughly the size of a paragraph. If two words are close together, then the chance of them being related is increased. Only works when your search is set to Boolean mode. Useful when searching for references to case names.
W/n Proximity operator Can use any number after slash (1 to 1000) Order of terms not important (ie "a w/5 b" same as "b w/5 a")	mabo w/5 queensland	Returns all documents where the first term appears within n words of the second term, where n is a number you specify. So you could use "mabo w/10 queensland", "mabo w/50 queensland" (same as using near) or "mabo w/100 queensland". If two words are clsoe together, then the chance of them being related is increased. Only works when your search is set to Boolean mode. Useful when searching for references to case names.
PRE/n Proximity operator Can use any number after slash (1 to 1000) Order of terms important (ie "a pre/5 b" is different to "b pre/5 a")	sentencing pre/5 statistics	Returns all documents where the first term precedes the second term by no more than n words, where N is a number you specify. This means that the first term must come before the second term in the document, separated by no more than n words. Examples might be "sentencing pre/10 statistics", "sentencing pre/50 statistics" or "sentencing pre/100 statistics". Only works in Boolean mode.
/n/ Proximity operator Same as W/n operator (above) Emulated STATUS operator	smith/10/brown	Finds documents where words and phrases appear within n words of each other (as in the old STATUS system), where n is a number you specify. Similar in function to W/n (see above).
/m,n/ Proximity operator Finer control than W/n (above) Emulated STATUS operator	smith/-10,10/brown smith/1,10/brown	Finds documents where words and phrases appear somewhere within m to n words of each other. You can use a negative value for m to mean "this many words before the second" and a positive value to mean "this many words after the second".
TITLE( ... ) Field operator Limit search to title of document Also limits to case names Also limits to section and regulation names for legislation	title(commonwealth) commonwealth@title But use: title(commonwealth bank) and not: commonwealth bank@title	Limits the search to document titles only. The example will find all those files with the word "commonwealth" in the title. This only works in Boolean mode, and can be combined with other operators. The text inside the title can contain other operators as well. This is a valid search: "title(westpac OR suncorp) AND title(australian taxation office OR ATO)".
punctuation Replace all punctuation with a space in searches Only use double quotation marks for phrases that contain operators	[ ] { } ^ + - ,	See Full SINO Documentation for information on the special meaning of many symbols. As a general rule, omit all punctuation in your searches by replacing it with space characters, since some characters have a special meaning that could yield unpredictable results.
Precedence
Default precedence rules: word ( terms ) phrase w/n pre/n w/seg /n/ /m,n/ @ name ( terms ) or & && and not ^ || | , ;	( crime and punishment ) or jail	Normally, searches are evaluated left to right. There is a default precedence order (see SINO Precedence), but it is a good idea to force parts of your search to be evaluated first using round brackets. Note that the following searches are all different: "journalist AND defamation OR publish", "journalist AND (defamation OR publish)" and "(journalist AND defamation) OR publish".