The FastLaws.com search engine will search the full text of the all legal materials on this web site.
When You Want to Search Only One Code
To restrict the results for your search to only one code on this site, browse to that code, and then use the code-only search button on any page in that code.
When Your Search Produces No Results
The search engine used by FastLaws does not search for certain words, called stopwords. These are words the search engine regards as too common to index. It also does not search for any word that is shorter than four characters.
One way to include stopwords and short words in your search is to use them as part of a quoted phrase that also includes one or more words that are not stopwords. For instructions on how to search for a phrase, see "When Your Search Produces Too Many Results" below.
When Your Search Produces Too Many Results: Refining Your Search
You can use special characters to restrict the results that will be returned. If you don't use any special characters, all pages containing any of the words in your query will appear in the results. Below are some examples showing how to use the special characters.
If you use no special characters and search for
aggravated robbery
the results will include pages with either of those two words, not just the pages that contain both words.
If you want to find only pages that contain both words, use the plus sign, as in the following query:
+aggravated +robbery
This search will find pages containing both words, but not limited to the pages that contain the phrase "aggravated robbery".
If you want to find only pages with the phrase "aggravated robbery", use quotation marks, as in this query:
"aggravated robbery"
If you want to find pages with the word "aggravated" but not the word "robbery", use this query:
+aggravated -robbery
You can also use these various special characters in a variety of combinations. The plus sign before a search word or phrase will only return results that contain that word or phrase. The minus sign before a search word or phrase will only return results that do not contain that word or phrase. And two or more words or phrases without plus or minus signs will return results containing any of those query words or phrases.