Refining a query allows you to filter through the words your query matched and remove any unintended matches.
There are three options on the start page associated with refining queries, these are:
Checking this option will cause different behaviour to each term of your query:
record | Word or pattern search. Each match will be broken down into its POS types allowing you to filter out the types you are not interested in. For example you may wish to search for 'record' as a verb and an adjective but not a noun. You will be able to select only those options you are interested in. |
{D*} | Tag search. Each word of the POS type specified (in this case determiner) will be listed so you can remove any undesirable matches. For example this query would match 'that's' which you may not wish to search for, you will now be able to remove it from the search. |
This will limit each word matched by your query to have a frequency in the current corpus subsection greater than or equal to that specified. All types below this frequency will be removed from the search. If a POS tag is entered the frequency of the POS type will be considered.
This will display the first X types sorted in frequency order. All types appearing after this mark will be eliminated from the search. If used in conjunction with Consider POS Variants then the types will be sorted firstly on the frequency of the groups then the frequency of each type.
After clicking the Refine Query button a page will be displayed containing the query string along the top with a small down facing triangle next to each term. Clicking on a term will list the types that it has matched. Note that if there are many types this page can take a long time to load, we recommended that you wait for the Get Concordances button to appear before opening a list of words.
Each list will contain the types the term has matched, sorted by frequency, with a checkbox and the frequency of the type alongside. If the checkbox contains a tick the type will be included in the search, you can now remove any types you do not wish to include by un-ticking them.
When you are finished click on the Get Concordances button at the bottom of the page to continue your search.
At the bottom of the page some extra options will be displayed:
| Include All | Clicking this button will check all of the types in the currently visible list. |
| Exclude All | Clicking this button will uncheck all of the types in the currently visible list. |
| Exclude words with frequency below X | Entering a value and clicking the Set button will uncheck all types with a frequency below that specified. |
| Exclude words with frequency above X | Entering a value and clicking the Set button will uncheck all types with a frequency above that specified. |
Note that this page can get very large and performing these functions can take some time. If your browser warns you of a long running piece of Javascript please allow it to continue to finish the operation.