Concord supports boolean, wildcard, and some punctuation searches. This article describes how to use them.
Boolean Searches
| Description | Examples of what to Type in Search... | Finds... | |
|---|---|---|---|
| AND | Use AND between search terms to find citations where all of the words in your search appear in the same sentence or verse. NOTE: By default, Concord does an AND search when you enter two or more words, so it's only necessary to use this when using a combination of several search types. Separate your search groups by parentheses.` | (Christ OR Jesus) AND (life OR liv*) | All sentences where "Christ" or "Jesus" appear with the word "life" or wildcards of the root "liv" (such as live, living, lived, lives, liveth) |
| OR | Use OR to indicate that you want to find sentences of verses containing any of the search words or phrases entered. | "kingdom of heaven" OR "kingdom of God" | All references to the exact phrase "kingdom of heaven" and all references to "kingdom of God" |
| (immortal OR eternal) life | All references to "immortal" or "eternal" and "life" in the same sentence, but not necessarily adjacent in as a phrase (as shown in the example above) | ||
| NOT | Use NOT to exclude certain words from your search. Type NOT in front of the word to exclude. | Christ NOT "Church of Christ" | All references to "Christ", excluding the references when it is used in the title of the church. |
| heal* NOT health* | heal, heals, healing, healings, healed, healer, and healers NOT health, healthy, healthier |
Wildcard Searches using an Asterisk [*] or Question Mark [?]
| Description | Type in Search... | Finds... |
|---|---|---|
| Asterisk at end (Finds all words that begin with the letters preceding the asterisk) | heal* | heal, heals, healing, healings, healed, healer, healers, health, healthy, healthier |
| Asterisk in middle (Finds words with the same surrounding letters) | m*hood | manhood, motherhood |
| Question Mark at end (Finds words that are one additional character) | fancie? | fancies, fancied |
| Question Mark at middle (Finds words with one different character in the middle) | wom?n | woman, women |
| Asterisk and Question Mark (Same beginning of words with one different character) | wom?n* | woman, woman's, womanhood, womankind, womanly, women, women's, womenservants |
These don't work... | ||
| Asterisk at beginning | *kind (mankind, | No results found |
| Asterisk at both beginning and end of word | *courage* (encourage, | No results found |
| Question Mark at beginning | ?light (slight, blight, | No results found |
Punctuation Searches using Question Mark and Exclamation Point
| Description | Examples of what to Type in Search... | Finds... | |
|---|---|---|---|
| ? | As noted under the "Wildcard Searches" section, the question mark can be used as a wildcard to replace a single letter in a word. If you would instead like to search for a word or phrase that ends with a question mark, you must include a backslash (\) before the question mark (?). This will tell Concord to look for where question marks appear as punctuation marks in the book text. | \? man\? | All questions marks in the text will show in the results. All sentences where a keyword is immediately followed by a question mark. |
| ! | The exclamation point uses the same syntax as the question mark – use a backslash (\) before the exclamation point (!). | \! No\! \? [SH 465-500] | All exclamation points in the text will show in the results. All sentences where a keyword is immediately followed by an exclamation point. Displays all questions in Recapitulation in Science and Health. |
Exclamation Point Search
| Description | Examples of what to Type in Search... | Finds... | |
|---|---|---|---|
| ! | The exclamation point, when used alone (without a backslash), signifies “NOT.” This will show search results that do not have the word(s) following the ! in the same sentence or verse. | Christ ! Jesus | The search results will yield search results with the word “Christ” alone, not followed by “Jesus” |
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