Scope

Check or uncheck the boxes next to Rules, Educational notes, Annotations, and Index to include or exclude results from these content areas in your search. The Educational notes, written by Nova Scotia Barristers’ Society staff, identify key elements, summarize main points or provide cross references for rules. The Annotations cite Nova Scotia decisions that have considered a rule. By default, Rules and Educational notes are checked.

Once you have performed a search and clicked on a rule main heading (e.g., Rule 4 - Action), by default, your next search will search within that rule, maintaining your previous scope selections (Rules, Educational notes, Annotations, and/or Index). If you wish to continue searching all rules, select the In all CPR radio button. You may adjust your scope selections at any time; at least one box must be checked to process a search.

Forms are not included in search. Instead, select the Forms tab to view the list of forms in numerical order, and view the forms in Adobe Acrobat PDF and Word. A forms link will appear below the text of a rule if there are forms associated with it. Click on the forms link to view the names of forms associated with that rule. Click on the form name to open the form in PDF.

The Concordance is not included in search. Select the Concordance tab to view the table of concordance from the 1972 rules to the new.

Case

Except for search operators, the search syntax is not case sensitive. Entering your search terms in upper or lower case will have no effect on search results. Search operators (AND, OR, NOT) must be capitalized; operators typed in lower case (and, or, not) are treated as just another search term.

Stem and wildcard (*) searching

The search engine performs limited automatic stem searching. Your search will retrieve documents containing your search term as you entered it (e.g., discover) as well as plurals and verb forms (discovers, discovered, discovering).

To deactivate this feature, place your search terms within parentheses preceded by the EXACT search operator. For example, EXACT(witness) will retrieve documents containing only witness, not witnessed, witnessing, witnesses.

To search with all possible endings of a word, and retrieve documents containing those terms, use the wildcard character (*) at the end of your search term. For example, the search term discover* will retrieve documents containing the words discovery and discoverable as well as discovers, discovered, and discovering.

Queries without operators

The search engine reads a space between search terms as an implicit AND. Entering judicial review application in the search box will retrieve documents in which each of judicial, review, and application appear.

Search operators

Phrase search (" ") To search for a phrase, type your search terms between quotes (e.g., "rules of evidence"). To search for a phrase with exact words – to deactivate stem searching – use the EXACT operator (e.g., EXACT("rules of evidence").

Boolean search (AND, OR, NOT) Use the Boolean search operators AND, OR, NOT (all upper case) between your search terms to perform a search that combines or excludes terms.

Proximity (/n, /s, /p) Use proximity operators between your search terms to retrieve documents containing at least one occurrence of search terms appearing within n words of each other (/n), or within the same sentence (/s) or paragraph (/p). For example, searching administer /3 oath retrieves documents in which there is one or more occurrence of the term administer found within three words or less from the term oath.

The Index Square brackets are used in the Index to denote explanatory or contextual information added to an official term by the editors of the Index. Square brackets are used particularly for the names of forms and with definitions.