Choose your search term carefully
Choose a search term that describes specifically what you are searching for. A general search term (such as “school”, “IT” or “Internet”) may produce so many hits that they can be difficult to sort through. Choose the search term that best describes the precise subject you are looking for.
Searching with multiple search terms
Multiple search terms usually produce more specific results than do single terms. The result of a multiple term search is a list of the pages that contain all of the search terms used. Pages where the search terms appear close together are ranked towards the top of the list.
For example:
polytechnic Oulu
guidance immigration
The first example looks for pages in which both words – “polytechnic” and “Oulu” — appear. The second example looks for pages containing both “guidance” and “immigration”. These searches do not list pages that contain only one of the terms.
Check your spelling
Did you spell the words correctly? Always check the spelling of your search terms.
Try synonyms
If you are unsatisfied with the results, try searching with other words that mean the same thing. You might find the right search terms in the “Study” (“Opiskelu”) section. Use the link in the upper margin.
Shortening terms with an asterisk (*)
The asterisk is useful in searching for word variants or compound words. Any search term can be truncated with an asterisk. In order to work, however, the asterisk must have at least three characters in front of it.
Example:
geo*
This search will find pages that have words beginning with “geo-”.
Search with quotation marks for consecutive words (phrases)
To find pages containing words occurring in a certain consecutive order, put quotation marks around your search phrase. This will search for pages where the words appear adjacently and in the same order as written in the search box.
Examples:
“paavo uronen”
“civil engineering”
“Helsinki university of technology”
“summer course in finnish”
Capital letters or lowercase?
Opintoluotsi searches do not distinguish between big and small letters. Searches for “tampere”, “Tampere” and “TAMPERE” will all return the same results.