Using the new LegSearch
This is a guide for using the new legislative search experience.
The information below applies to new search system.
For details on our legacy search experience, please visit the How to search our website page.
How to perform searches
Basic search
The search tool is organized into three tabs that help narrow your results:
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All content: Searches across all available content, including both legislative documents and website pages. This is the broadest search option.
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Bills & law documents: Searches only legislative documents, such as bills and materials associated with a specific biennium or year.
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Website: Searches web pages published on the leg.wa.gov and app.leg.wa.gov sites.
Selecting a specific tab narrows your search to the content type associated with that tab. If you are unsure where the information is located, start with All content and refine your search as needed.
To perform a search:
- Enter the word or words you want to search for in the main search field.
- Select the tab you want to search within. If no tab is selected, the search defaults to All content.
- Select the filters on the left-hand menu to refine your search.
- Press Enter or click the magnifying glass icon to run the search.
By default the main search field automatically includes variations or "stemming" of a word in your search results. For example, if you search for office the search may also return results containing office, officer, and offices. This helps broaden your results and ensures you don’t miss related content.
Refining search
LegSearch allows you to refine your search results using advanced search operators. These tools help narrow down the list of results especially when a basic search returns too many results.
Start your query with a hashtag (#) in the main search field. Adding # turns off automatic word variations called “stemming” and searches only for the exact words you type such as # office. Without the hashtag, LegSearch may also return results like office, officer, or offices. With the hashtag, it searches only for office.
To combine search terms using advanced search operators, follow the format below:
| Search operator | Description | Example |
|---|---|---|
| AND | Returns documents containing the terms or phrases on the left and right of AND. | # office AND license will return results that include both keywords. |
| OR | Finds documents containing either of the terms or phrases around OR. |
# office OR license will return results that include either keyword. |
| NOT | Excludes documents that contain the term or phrase followed by NOT. |
# office NOT license will return results that include the first keyword but exclude the second. |
| Exact phrase | Double quotes are used to look up exact phrases. |
# "office license" will return results that include the exact phrase enclosed in the the double quotes. |
| Wildcards | The question mark is a placeholder for a character and the asterisk for a phrase. |
# wh* will return results with what, white, and why # b?ll will return results with ball, bell, and bill. |
Using the advanced search form
You can refine your query using the advanced search form by clicking the Advanced search button. The table below describes the advanced search form below.
| Field | Description | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Exact phrase | Treats the entire query as an exact match. | The query will be searched as it is. A search for recognise will not find the documents with the spelling recognize. |
| One or more words | Returns documents containing at least one word from a multi-word query. | All the documents containing even one word from the multiword query will be returned. Public hearing will return documents containing the terms public, hearing, and public hearing. |
| Without the words | Excludes documents with the query (equivalent to NOT operator). | This is equivalent to adding a hyphen in front of a query in the search box. Public NOT hearing finds all documents with a mention of public but without hearing. |
| Wildcard search | This field offers a way to run advanced searches without using a hashtag (#). | This field turns off stemming search and allows the user to enter any keyword or phrase without having to use the hashtag in the query. |
| Proximity | Specify that query terms be within a certain number of words, or proximity, of each other by entering a numerical value. | If we type fishing license in the main search field and set a proximity of 5 in this field, we get 44 documents that meet our criteria. If we change the proximity to 15, we get 55 documents in our results list. |
How search results are ranked
Search results are ranked by relevance based on:
- Frequency of search terms
- Proximity of terms to each other
- Occurrence of terms in key phrases
- Exact matches
- Different word forms or variations of a word like search, searching, or searched. These rank lower than exact matches.
This means results are not sorted numerically by document number. Use advanced search form and filters to help surface the most relevant items. You may also change the sort by relevance, popularity, and created date.
Open results in new tab
Search results open in a new tab when you left-click a result. To stay on the results page while opening a result in a separate tab, click the mouse wheel. You can also right-click a result and use the browser menu to open it in a new tab.
Search result limits
By default, search results are displayed 50 per page. You can select how many results to display per page based on your preference at the bottom of the page. The available options are 50, 100, and 250 (maximum) results per page.
Previewing results
- Click the preview icon (eyeball) next to a result to open a web page or document in a preview modal, allowing you to review it without leaving the search results page.
- Your search term will be highlighted throughout the preview. Use Previous term and Next term to move between each instance of the term.
- To return to the results list, click the X in the top-right corner of the preview modal.
