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·	About the Database
·	Field Searches
·	General Search
·	Limit by Date
·	Search Types
·	Additional Search Techniques
	Refine Your Search
·	Display Your Results
·	Download Your Results
·	Obtain Documents
·	How Results Are Found and Displayed
·	NCJRS Online Thesaurus

Refine Your Search

• Too many hits?
• Not enough hits?

Too many hits?

• Don't use the General Search box. Refine your search using keywords in the title or author field if possible. Remember, the database has more than 200,000 documents to search.
• Limit the search by date. The database covers literature dating back to the 1960s and earlier.
• Use more specific words. Words such as "crime" or "police" will retrieve too much.
• Choose an ALL or PHRASE search instead of an ANY search.

Not enough hits?

• Use fewer terms. Too many terms can restrict a search.
• Choose an ANY search instead of an ALL or PHRASE search.
• Change one of the terms to a broader one. For example, replace "juvenile gangs" with "gangs."
• Use synonyms or related words with an ANY search.
• Use the "wildcard," include the pulural forms of words by typing an asterisk (*) after the search term(s). For example, "prison*" will find "prison," "prisons," "prisoners," and other words with the root word "prison".
• Look for misspellings in the search terms.

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Last updated on: 10/5/2009