T r o u b l e    S h o o t i n g     The most common searching mistake is misspellings. Check the spelling of all the words in your query. If all the words are spelled correctly, you might then try: Using synonyms or related terms:   Example: Use fear for afraid, pastor for minister, iniquity for wickedness, etc. Searching by Specific Authors (e.g., John Calvin, Prof. David Engelsma, Martin Luther, Kim Riddlebarger, etc.). Searching by Specific Subjects (e.g., Divorce, Infant Baptism, Communion, Predestination, Apostasy, Women Pastors, etc.). Broaden searches:   If you don't get many search results, broaden your search. You may do this by eliminating some of the words. Or by using truncation as wildcards (e.g., in searching Bapti it will also turn up Baptism, Baptists, Baptize, Baptizes, Baptized, Baptizing, etc.). Another option is to try "short phrase" or even one word or topic searches (e.g., women's issues, bible translations, eschatology, christology, etc.). Refine searches:   If you search to broadly and get too many search results, refine your search by adding relevant words. Example: Try longer phrases (e.g., Institutes of Christian Religion, Bondage of the will, What is the meaning of life, etc.). Or use boolean searching such as "Allegory and John Bunyan." This will only turn up articles that contain "allegory" and the name "John Bunyan."     Some people will sometimes actually miss their search topic by searching too specifically. Remember, this search engine is coded to be both simple to use, and yet will give accurate (relevant) results. And using a simple algorithm, it will also attempt to sort by relevancy. Because there is not a lot of unwanted, unchristian or unrelated information keyed in here, you can often be more general and still get great relevant results.     A good tip is to leave out the middle initials if you're searching by an author, as some people catalog authors only by their first and last name or even initial. In other words, a search for charles haddon spurgeon will likely miss any literature listed under "c spurgeon", or "charles h. spurgeon". While a search for "charles spurgeon" will produce most of the listings. The key word here is "simplify." In that regard, simply searching "spurgeon" will produce all information related to spurgeon (this guarantees you'll miss nothing in the database about spurgeon). For best results, start out simple, and get more specific only if necessary (if you receive too many page results). Search Related Topics     Use logic. For example, if you're searching for information about the pope, you might also try popery, or papacy. People write things about the same people differently, so you should try alternative words. i.e., If you're searching for information on how to raise children biblically, just try the words "parenting" or "raising children." Or if you look up soteriology, you might also look up "doctrine of Salvation." Looking up words like Calvinism will often bring up information about Predestination, as they are related in topic. More Tips and Hints     If you are looking for a specific writing or literature, but you can't think of it's name, but you know the name of the author, search by his name. The authors name is normally indexed somewhere in the database as keywords or in descriptions. Exclude any middle initials!     Try expected misspellings. This engine has a spell checker that catches many commonly misspelled words, but not all. For example, many people write the word armenian when what they really mean is arminian. These are both legitimate words. If you're not sure of a spelling, try searching both ways. Help us by Indexing your URLs     Make sure that you do not index your main (index.html) home page. This search is for your specific literature, articles, books, Real audio, Bible studies, information, documents, etc., only! If you want to draw someone to your home page, index a good Article, and place a link from the article to your page. Any home pages indexed will be removed. Documents will be either be auto-indexed immediately, or will be manually indexed usually within 24 hours or sooner. If for some reason the spider cannot index your URL, leave us a message with all the information and it will be indexed.