Searching articles help

Text searches

The search engine ignores words less than three characters long and searches only for complete words. If you have difficulty finding an article therefore you may need to try alternative search terms - eg KS3, KeyStage 3, Key Stage 3

Browsing using article categories

Clicking on the categories listed down the left of the screen reveals sub-categories. Ticking any of these will provide access to all articles submitted which have been categorised accordingly.

Clicking on Home will untick all boxes to facilitate a new search.

When searching by categories, Lead Articles are shown first (where these exist) followed by all other matching articles in order of their popularity. Popularity is scored by giving articles a 'vote' each time one is visited.

If a key word is also entered in the main search box at the top right of the screen, it will be searched for only in those articles matching the chosen category.

Several categories may be ticked to refine a search further to reveal submissions which match and searches are then limited to these.

When more than one category is ticked a window appears on the right of the screen showing other articles that have at least one of the chosen categories ticked. These are displayed as being 'Also of interest'.

The order in which categories are ticked has no effect e.g. /KS3/Food is exactly the same place on the site as /Food/KS3 so the order in which users navigate the menu system doesn't matter.

A 'bread crumb' trail is created at the top of the screen to show the search path.

Clicking on the link to 'Show article classifications' reveals all the category classification boxes. Ticking any one or any combination of these will focus searches on those categories.