help

To unlock the full potential of Accuriacy, all you need to do is understand the role of two special characters: the [#] character and the [+] character.

The simplest form of full-text search is to type in a series of words. By default, Accuriacy will identify documents containing all the words specified within a 100-word radius (approximately 2 paragraphs):

However, you can change this behaviour by defining the desired radius preceded by the [#] character. Thus, the previous search is equivalent to:

For a stricter search, where all words must be within a 10-word radius, use:

For a looser search, where all words must be within a 99999-word radius, use:

If you type in many words, you will probably need to increase the radius. Check out the 2 following examples.

To search for an exact phrase, you can use quotation marks around the phrase, e.g. "phrase" or “phrase” or «phrase». This tells Accuriacy to search for the words in the exact order you’ve enclosed them in the quotation marks:

PS: By the way, using a 0-word radius is like searching for an exact phrase. See for yourself:

Advanced search, a more sophisticated form of full-text search, involves typing several series of words, separated by the [+] character.
Think of advanced search as a series of successive full-text searches.
What’s the added value of advanced search? In some cases, not all the words you are looking for are close to each other. As explained above, a simple full-text search will assume that all words must be within a 100-word radius, as in the following example:

In the following advanced search, Accuriacy will search the 2 series of words successively, with a very different outcome indeed:

Furthermore, in advanced search, you can also specify the radius for each series of words with the [#] character, to carry out a stricter search:

It is impossible to list all the possible uses of the advanced search, as it adapts to the needs of each and every user. As a general rule, bear in mind that advanced search allows you to target different parts of the documents, such as: the beginning (both ECJ and ECHR judgments often start with keywords), the legal provisions cited, the factual framework, the Court’s reasoning (the grounds) and the operative part. Here are a few examples: