HowTo

Searching

Words and phrases can be inputted as search terms. Sentences that contain the character string will be retrieved and shown in the search results. For example, by inputting “teach” as the search term, sentences containing “teaching” or “teacher” will also be listed. In order to list sentences that contain “teach” but not “teacher,” etc., the “Exact match” check box should be checked.

Combining Searches

The relation between strings can be searched by including “ * ” between them. For example, the input of “teach * about” will generate a list of all sentences containing BOTH “teach” and “about”. If “ | ” is included in the search string as in “teach | about”, sentences that contain “teach” OR “about will be listed. If sentences containing “teaching about”, for example, are also looked for, “teach* about” (no space between “teach” and “*”) should be inputted as the search string. Multiple “ * ” and “ | ” can be combined in the same search, “ * ” being processed before “ | ”.

Sorting

Retrival results can be sorted according to various criteria. The table below shows the default criteria order.

Default sort criteria

First criterion	Second criterion
Word(s) containing the search string	Previous words

For example, for “teach” as the “Search string,” all sentences containing “teach” will appear before sentences containing “teacher.” If “Following Words” in the title bar of the retrieved results window is pressed, the sentences will be resorted with the words after the search string being now the first criterion, like in the table below.

Criteria after pressing “Following Words”

First criterion	Second criterion
Following Words	Word(s) containing the search string

If “Search String” is pressed after the resorting above (with the following words as the first criterion), “Following words” remains as the second criterion. In summary, after subsequent resorting makes the previous sorting criterion to remain as the second criterion:

Criteria in subsequent resorting

First criterion	Second criterion
Criterion pressed	First criterion in previous sorting

Because the corpus is composed of transcriptions of spoken language, punctuation marks such as comas, apostrophes, etc. are not considered in sorting. We do consider periods, semicolons, interrogation marks, and exclamation marks, because these indicate the end of a sentence.