As with all search engines the key to a successful search is in the choice of search terms. Some basic guidelines for searches include:

• Try to define what you are looking for as precisely as possible, bearing in mind that the more accurate the words you use, the more accurate your search will be. The items that match all or most of your search words will be at the top of the results list, ranked with the highest relevance.
• It may help to try different words and phrases that express the idea you are searching for - the order doesn't matter. The search engine understands some abbreviations and synonyms, but it is also a good idea to try different ways of expressing the ideas you are searching for. 
• For more tips on searching Google, see http://www.google.co.uk/support/?ctx=web 
• Remember that capitalisation is not recognised.
• There is no need to include the words ‘and’ ‘how’ ‘where’ unless vital to the search as they will be ignored. To include these words prefix them with ‘+’ making sure that you include a space between the previous word and the ‘+’. 
• For an exact match put the phrase in quotation marks. This is particularly relevant when looking for individuals e.g. “Douglas Alexander”. 
   
  

  Advanced Search
  

  Negative Terms: to exclude a particular word from your results you could search with a ‘-‘ e.g. ‘sanitation projects –water’ would give sanitation projects that exclude water.
  If you wish to search for synonyms as part of your search include ~ immediately in front of the search term e.g. ‘country ~strategy paper’ could also bring up country approach / plan / policy papers.
  To search for documents that could include one or other terms the word OR (in capitals) should be included e.g. ‘ “country strategy paper “ Kenya OR Tanzania’ will bring up results for country strategy papers that include Kenya or Tanzania or both. It will not produce the same results as ‘ “country strategy paper” Kenya Tanzania’ which will look for all words and possibly yield less specific results.