Search Tips

The Reporter's Source is controlled by a powerful search engine. You can use the fields on the search form to narrow your search according to the keywords or other criteria that you select. If you want the broadest possible search, leave all fields blank (although this may result in an inordinately large number of results).

E-Mail address:

Did you know that you can search for people using a specific Internet Access Provider? For example, if you wanted to find all people using America Online, you could enter the keywords "aol.com" in the Keywords search form.

Phone Number:

Even if you don't know the whole number, you can enter parts of the number in the Keywords search box (make sure that Exact Match is not turned on). Or, you could search for people in the 703 area code by entering "703".

URL of Homepage:

Again, you could search for people whose home pages reside at a specific server. For example, to find people whose homepages reside at America Online, type "aol.com" in the Keyword Search form. In fact, if you just wanted to see people with home pages, you could simply type "http://" in this field, and the program will ony display entries for people who have homepages.

Price Range:

Search for items within a specific price range. In these two fields, you can enter the price range that you are interested in. For example, to find items priced between $5,000 and $10,000, type "$5,000" in the "Lowest Acceptable Price" box and "$10,000" in the "Highest Acceptable Price" box.

Age Search:

For people, you can also search by age. In these two fields, you can enter the age range of people that you would like to find. For example, to find people between 25 and 40, type "25" in the "Youngest" box and "40" in the "Oldest" box.

Date Range Searching:

In these two fields, you can search the Reporter's Source for only those leads posted within a specific date range. To do so, you must specify a beginning date and an ending date. The program will return all of the entries that fall within that date range. The format is MM/DD/YYYY, although you can also use the last two digits only for the year. For example, March 15, 2005 would be entered as 03/15/2005 (but 03/15/05 would also be acceptable). By default, the program automatically puts the current date in the End Date field, but you can change this to anything you want.

Must Have Photos:

By checking this box, you can limit your search results to include only those leads that contain at least one photo.

Must Have Sound Clips:

By checking this box, you can limit your search results to include only those leads that contain at least one sound clip.

Must Have Video Clips:

By checking this box, you can limit your search results to include only those leads that contain at least one video clip.

Case Sensitive:

If you you check the case sensitive box, capitalization will matter. For example, if you search for "Star", then listings with the word "star" will not show up.

Exact Word Match:

You can also use the exact word match box to narrow your search. This box toggles searches between "precise" and "fuzzy" matching. For example, if you check the exact word match box and search for "dog" then only listings with the word "dog" in them will show up. Listings with "dogs" or "dogged" in them would not.

Searching Within Each Field:

Here, you can specify how the program will search within each field for the keywords that you specified. For example, if you specified three keywords, choosing "Any Word Can Match" will cause the program to include any lead that includes any one of your three keywords. Choosing "All Words Must Match" will cause the program to limit its results to only those leads that contain all three of your keywords. Choosing "Exact Phrase Must Match" will cause the program to display only those leads that contain your three keywords in exactly the order that you listed them, in other words, as an exact phrase.

Sort by which field:

Here, you can specify how the program should sort your results.

Sort Order:

Here, you can choose to have the program sort in ascending or descending order. For example, if you choose to sort by last name and select "Descending" for the Sort Order, the results page with Z first, and then backwards through the alphabet. For numbers or dates, selecting "Ascending" will cause the program to show leads with the lowest numbers or oldest dates first. Selecting "Descending" here will cause it to display leads with the highest numbers or most recent dates first.

Results per page:

Here, you can choose how many leads you want the program to display on each page. You can choose to display as few as 10 or as many as 200 leads per page (the default setting is 10). If your search results in more than this number of leads, the results page will tell you your total number of matches and then state "This page will show you leads 1 to 10" (or whatever number you chose here). You will also be given a button at the bottom of the page that you can click on to "See the next 10 hits" (or however many leads per page you chose here). If you choose a large number such as 200, please keep in mind that pulling up 200 leads per page could take a very long time and could even crash your web browser if it causes a memory overload. This will depend largely on the memory, processing speed, and other configuration aspects of your computer. If the results page tells you that you had more hits than you chose to display, you can always go back and increase the number of leads to display per page or narrow your search criteria by filling in more of the search fields so that fewer leads will be displayed.

Display Leads as:

Here, you can choose whether the leads should be displayed in the Headlines (short) format or the Full Size (long) format. The headlines format gives you nice, concise tables that allow you to quickly compare key features and sort by these features, as well as links to the full version of each lead. If you want to see the full version of all leads right away, then choose the Full Size format.