Tips and hints on refining your alert

Your E-mail Alerts only returns stories that contain all the words you used in setting up the alert. Refining or narrowing your alert is as simple as adding more words to the keywords you have already entered.

The more words you type in, the more specific the results will be

Put double-quotes around phrases that you want to find. For example, if you want to be alerted on the specific phrase George W. Bush, type in "George W. Bush". Always double-check your spelling if you do not receive any alerts. If no alerts are received, review the terms that you entered to make sure that you did not misspell any terms. If you did, visit "Manage Alerts" and correct the spelling for your alert. Only documents containing all of the words in the query will be returned. If you are looking for a specific item, type several words that will definitely be included in that document. For example, if you're looking for something less specific, just type in "tax" and you'll get more matches. There is no need to include "and" between terms. If you select a generic word, you will receive every article from CNN.com and CNNmoney.com that includes the generic keyword.

Filter out keywords by using the "excluding" field

Refine your alert by entering keywords that you want filtered out. For example, if you are interested in stories about George Bush but not stories that include the word "taxes", enter "George Bush" in the keyword field and "taxes" in the "excluding" field.

Capitalization

Alert topics are NOT case sensitive. All letters, regardless of how you type them, will be understood as lower case. For example, alerts for "george bush", "George Bush", and "gEoRgE bUsH" will all return the same results.

Select words or phrases that are descriptive

Think about how you would describe the perfect story or resource for your alert. If you want information about stem cell research in Europe, type in exactly that - "Stem Cell Research Europe" (remember to use double-quotes).