SPIN Frequently Asked Questions

SPIN Frequently Asked Questions

Searches are carried out against the entire text of the SPIN programs. This includes opportunity titles, sponsor names, synopses, objectives, as well as funding opportunity numbers, email addresses, keywords, and several other fields. For example, if I only use the keyword “immigration” in my search, I might get results pertaining to funds offered to projects related to immigration, as well as any projects whose description detail an applicant’s “immigration status.”

SPIN automatically invokes inflectional forms of the entered words (e.g., different conjugations of a verb). For example, a search for "test" will also scan for tests, tested, and testing. This can be disabled by inserting a plus sign (+) before the search term: +test.

SPIN can pass entered terms through an integrated thesaurus, potentially expanding the terms being searched for. For example, a search for cancer will scan all SPIN programs for: cancer, carcinogens, chemotherapy, tumors, oncology, and other terms. To do so, insert a ‘~’ before each individual term you are using to perform your search.

~Scientific researchInserting a tilde searches for records containing ‘scientific’ or its related terms in the thesaurus, and ‘research’
~“Scientific research”Inserting a tilde before a quoted phrase searches for records containing the phrase ‘scientific research’ or its related terms in the thesaurus

A second term can be added to your initial word using logic. For example, when the search results using the keyword “education” are very broad, using logic to include “education” AND “curriculum,” for example may be helpful. Your keywords should be typed this way: education AND curriculum

SPIN also contains a number of capabilities to build complex searches with various logic and grammar parsing. The commands can be combined together, along with parenthetical logic to dictate the order of operations, for building complex queries defining exactly what you are looking for.

Example InputDescription
Scientific researchSearches for records containing ‘scientific’ and ‘research’ or their inflectional forms
Scientific OR researchSearches for records containing ‘scientific’ or ‘research’ or their inflectional forms
"Scientific research"Wrapping terms in double quotes searches for records containing the phrase ‘scientific research’
Scientific -researchInserting a minus symbol before a term searches for records containing ‘scientific’ and not ‘research’
+scientificInserting a plus symbol before a term performs search after disabling expansion for inflectional forms
Scient*Appending an asterisk to a term invokes a wildcard search: searches for records containing ‘scient’ and any suffix
~Scientific researchInserting a tilde searches for records containing ‘scientific’ or its related terms in the thesaurus, and ‘research’
~“Scientific research”Inserting a tilde before a quoted phrase searches for records containing the phrase ‘scientific research’ or its related terms in the thesaurus

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