Help:Tutorials/Search on Ballotpedia

Take me to the tutorials library →

Next: Citing your References

→

How to search on Ballotpedia:	Example:
You have some information you would like to add to Ballotpedia, so you need to find the best place on the wiki to add it, or even start your own article. On any page on the wiki, look for the two search boxes in the left rail of the page. Each of them will report results in a unique way. The Top Search Box The top box gives the option of “go” or “search.” The “Go” command When you type a search term in the box, and click on “Go,” the wiki looks for article names that are an exact match with your term(s). If there is a page on the wiki that is an exact match to the term you entered in the search box, the page will appear. If there is no match, the resulting page gives an opportunity for you to create a page with that term. Remember that since it is looking for exact terms, even a small misspelling will result in finding no page matches. The “Go” command is a good method of starting a new article, since it also gives you an opportunity to create a page if none exists. If you are sure there is a page by that term or terms, you may want to try several versions or spellings to get the correct page. “Search” Or, you may want to click the “search” command. This will result in excerpts of the articles in the wiki that contain that search word(s). However, if you misspell the word again, you may get no matches. The “Search” command results page will also show you pages where your search word(s) appears in a Ballotpedia article or multiple articles, with that exact article name, or with the term "Sarah" or the term "Palin." This resulting “Search” page will not give the opportunity to create a new page. The bottom Search Box: The bottom search box is a Custom Google Search. The results page looks like a Google search results page. Remember that this custom Google Search will only find articles on Ballotpedia. All of the results will be locations on Ballotpedia where your subject is mentioned. Note: You can also find something on Ballotpedia by using the regular Google Search box in your browser. Just type the name you are inquiring about and the word "Ballotpedia." The Google Search results will list the Ballotpedia articles about your subject first, if any such articles exist on Ballotpedia.