Search Tips | Building Your Search | Sample Searches | Match All Fields | Truncation | Phrase Searching | Proximity Operator | Precedence

I. Search Tips

1. If you are unsure what field to search in, use the All Fields search box. This will search for the terms you enter across all text fields in each record.
2. Many grant sponsors do not mention specific kinds of research they will fund. Instead they state broader disciplines within which they will consider applications. Some research topics may not get any results in searching, but that does not necessarily mean there are no grants the project may be eligible for. If this happens, try searching for grants in the broader field(s) within which your project falls. For example, a project to study zebra mussels may be eligible under a grant looking to fund projects in the broader fields of Biological Sciences, Marine Biology, or Environmental Biology, etc.
3. To search by COS Unique ID use the All Fields box on the Main Search interface.
4. Keywords 'Explode' function: Use this to expand your Keyword search. For example, if you are searching on the Keyword 'Education' and Explode it, the system will automatically search for all the more specific 'educational' terms under it in the Keyword hierarchy, such as 'Higher Education', 'Literacy', etc. For more details, see the Keyword section of the Help.
5. To select multiple terms from any picklist (e.g. Sponsor Type, Citizenship, etc.), hold down the Ctrl key on your keyboard (the Apple key for Mac users) and click on the terms you want to select.
6. Use Truncation (Asterisk), Proximity Operators (pre/#, w/#), Exact Phrase Searching (Double Quotes), and Precedence (Parentheses) to give your search more flexibility.
   • Example: (gene w/2 mouse) or "mouse genome" -- searches for the word "gene" within 2 words of "mouse" or for the exact phrase "mouse genome."
7. Searches are case insensitive. Using either upper or lower case letters will yield the same result set.
8. With the exception of the hyphen, do not use punctuation marks (slashes, commas, etc.). Punctuation marks in most cases will retrieve erroneous results. This also applies to the Amount Field. For monetary amounts, leave out any commas or periods. E.g.: $10,000 = 10000.
9. Do not use the articles a, an, or the. The search software does not search for these or other common stop words.
10. Search or Browse by Sponsor: most U.S. government agencies are listed under the letter 'U'.

II. Building Your Search

III. Sample Searches

1. I am looking for funding to bring students from Mexico to attend our university for a year. The field of study is not defined, the primary purpose being for them to take some general courses and improve their English:
   For this type of search, there are probably several strategies you could try. If you want to find all programs that fund 'Educational or Cultural Exchange Programs' - you should search with that COS Keyword (this can be limited further by choosing the appropriate 'Activity Location' - the location of your University). You should not choose Mexico from the Citizenship field unless the students themselves will be applying for the grants.
   You could also do a search using the keyword: English as a Second Language and combine this with selections from the Funding Type field ('Program or Curriculum Development' or 'Conference or Seminar or Visiting Personnel', etc.).
   
   
2. I am a graduate student looking for funding to attend an environmental economics conference in Australia:
   One thing to keep in mind is that many funding opportunities do not mention specific projects or disciplines they will fund in. You may want to start out by doing a search just on other fields, such as:
   • Requirements: Graduate student
   • Citizenship: US (make sure unrestricted and unspecified boxes are checked)
   • Funding Type: Conference or Seminar... and Travel
   • Activity Location (click on Browse..): choose Australia and make sure all the options under 'Include' in that field are checked.
   This should get you a sizable number of available grants. You can then add other criteria if you want to narrow the search, for example, with the COS Keyword: Environmental Economics.
   
   
3. I want to locate funding for my upcoming project on the effects of airport construction on the San Francisco Bay marine life:
   One thing to keep in mind is that many grant sponsors do not mention specific kinds of research they will fund. Instead they mention broader disciplines within which they will consider applications. As a result, your first step should be to decide which broader scientific disciplines or fields your project is considered part of. The above project could be considered to fall within several fields:
   • Biological Sciences or Marine Biology
   • Environmental Sciences or Conservation Biology
   
   You may or may not want to choose 'California' from the Activity Location browser. If it is chosen, make sure the 'Unrestricted' and 'Unspecified' fields are checked so that grants that don't specify or restrict where the research will take place will be included in the search.
   
   
4. I want to find all grants with a value over $50,000 earmarked for small business that have a deadline ending after January 1, 2007 and that can be used for community development projects in London, UK:
   1. Use the 'Search Geographically' option and click on Europe and then United Kingdom.
   2. From the table below the map, click on 'Funding for activities to be conducted in United Kingdom'.
   3. Amount: click on the down arrow and highlight 'more than'. Type either: 50000 or 49999 in the box. Remember, do not include punctuation (commas or periods) in the amount field.
   4. Keywords: click on 'Browse' button. On the keyword display window type: community into the search box provided. This will bring up all keywords with this term in it. Choose: Community Development or Revitalization (you might also choose: 'Community or Outreach Programs' or 'Economic Development'. Click on the term itself to add it to your search.
   5. Requirements: choose 'small business' from the picklist.

IV. Match All Fields and Match Any Field

These options allow you to either narrow or broaden your search criteria depending on your selection.

Match all Fields

This will retrieve records including ALL of your selected search criteria. This is similar to the Boolean operator AND. This is the default option and is used unless another option is selected.

Example: Selecting AIDS as a KEYWORD and selecting Private Foundation as the SPONSOR TYPE will retrieve all funding opportunities dealing with AIDS from private foundations.

Match Any Field

This will retrieve records including ANY of your selected criteria. This is similar to the Boolean operator OR.

Example: Selecting AIDS as a KEYWORD and typing National Institutes of Health in the SPONSOR field will retrieve all funding opportunities that have the COS keyword AIDS, as well as, all funding opportunities from the National Institutes of Health, whether or not they fund AIDS research.


You can also the Boolean Operators AND, OR, and NOT, within a search field.

Examples: In the ALL FIELDS box entering -

Baseball and Football will retrieve all records containing both baseball and football.

Baseball OR Football will retrieve all records containing either baseball or football.

Baseball NOT Football will retrieve all records containg the word baseball without the word football.

V. Truncation (*)

This search method is also called a wild card or root word search. If you type an asterisk after the root of the word you want to search, the search engine will find all records containing words beginning with that root. Use this tool if you are unsure of an exact spelling or when you want to include plural forms in your search.

• Example: hea* -- searches for "heat", "heart", "health", "healing", "healthcare", etc.

Please note that left and internal truncation cannot be used -- the system ignores all letters to the right of the truncation symbol (*). Also note that truncation cannot be combined with proximity searches.

VI. Phrase Searching

The simplest way to search for an exact phrase is to define your search by enclosing the phrase in double quotation marks "".

• Example: "biological agents" searches for the exact phrase "biological agents".

VII. Proximity Operator (w/#)

If you want to search for words used together but not necessarily limit the search to an exact phrase, you should use a proximity search. The proximity operator defines how close to one another you want the terms to be used in the records returned. The operator w/# defines proximity of words in any order. The number (#) you fill in determines how far apart the terms can be.

For Example, w/1 requires that the words be adjacent. Using w/3 allows up to two words to come between the terms you are searching for. See the examples below:

• medical w/1 diagnosis -- searches for the term "medical" adjacent to the term "diagnosis". Items retrieved would include phrases such as "medical diagnosis" and "diagnosis, medical."
• american w/3 association -- searches for "american" used within three or fewer words of "association". Items retrieved would include phrases such as "Association of American Medical Colleges" and "American Defense Preparedness Association."
  
• Note: stop words are included in determining proximity.

When using more than one proximity operator, you must use parentheses.

• (american w/1 psychological) w/1 association -- searches for "american" within one word of "psychological" within one word of "association." Items retrieved would include the phrase "American Psychological Association."
• american w/1 (psychological w/1 association) -- searches for the same records as the search phrase in the example above.
• american w/1 psychological w/1 association retrieves no records.

VIII. Precedence

You can tell the search engine to execute search commands in a particular order by using parentheses. This works like the rules for math problems. For example, in the equation (4+3) x 2, you first add 4 and 3 to get 7, and then multiply 7 by 2.

• Example: ((aids or hiv) and microbiology) not tropical -- will search for records with either "aids" or "hiv" and containing the term "microbiology", and then will limit this set of records to those that do not contain the term "tropical".

Nested parenthesis can be used as long as all parentheses occur in matched pairs.

• Example: ((corn or maize) and (soil or nutr*)) not pesticide -- searches for records containing either "corn" or "maize" and also "soil" or the root word "nutr", but will exclude any records containing the term "pesticide".

IX. Exclusion

Page Created: 8/98 ; Last Updated: 10/05 ; URL : http://fundingopps.cos.com/docs/rules.shtml

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