Search tips

Short searches — one or two words — work better than long ones.

The search target option, located below the Search the Essays box, sets which edition to search. Contemporary English is the default option.

Search is case-insensitive.

Some articles, conjunctions, prepositions, and adverbs have been removed from our index and return no results on their own. They are included when searching for phrases.

Search works exclusively on the text of the Essays, not on the whole website.