This database, sponsored by the U.S. Office of Government Ethics (OGE) contains informal advisory letters and memoranda and formal opinions on how to interpret and comply with the conflict of interest, post-employment, standards of conduct, and financial disclosure requirements in the executive branch.

To conduct an effective search of the OGE web site please refer to the search tips and examples provided in the section "How to Search for Documents on the OGE Web Site via GPO Access." For information on how to search the text of documents retrieved from a search please see "How to Search Text of Documents on the Search Results List."

HOW TO SEARCH FOR ADVISORY OPINIONS ON THE OGE WEB SITE VIA GPO ACCESS

To search for advisory opinions on the OGE web site via GPO Access, you can look for a single word or use the tips below to refine your search to find more specific results. The search is not case-sensitive. Only use quotes as specified below.

Example: Type standards of conduct to find opinions that contain the exact phrase standards of conduct. Since the search is not case-sensitive, this is equivalent to Standards of Conduct.

Look for two or more words at once by using the AND operator.

Example: Type financial disclosure AND waivers to find opinions that have both the phrase financial disclosure and the word waivers anywhere.

Look for words that are close to each other by using the NEAR operator instead of the AND operator. When you use NEAR, the closer together the words are, the higher the rank of the page, so the higher it appears in the list of search results.

Example: Type conflict of interest NEAR impartiality to find opinions where the phrase conflict of interest is within 50 words of the word impartiality.

Look for synonyms or similar words by using the OR operator. Note that if you don't use the OR operator and search using multiple words, the words are treated as a phrase.

Example: Type gifts OR gratuities to find opinions containing the word gifts or the word gratuities, but not necessarily both.

Limit your search by using the AND NOT operator to exclude words.

Example: Type financial disclosure AND NOT employee to find opinions containing all instances of financial disclosure, as long as financial disclosure is not followed by the word employee.

Use double quotes if you want to use AND, OR, NOT, or NEAR literally. Note without the double quotes, this query would use the OR operator instead of the phrase.

Example: Type "government employee OR special government employee" to find opinions with the phrase government employee OR special government employee.

Use a single asterisk (*) to look for words that begin with the same letters.

Example: Type emp* to find employ, employing, employee, employer and employment.

Use a double asterisk (**) to look for all forms of a word.

Example: Type swear** to match swear, swore and sworn.

HOW TO SEARCH TEXT OF DOCUMENTS ON THE SEARCH RESULTS LIST

Most of the files on our site are provided in HTML, PDF and TEXT file formats. Search results are listed in order of relevance and are indicated by a series of red dots that appear beside the file type images (HTML , PDF , and TEXT ). A series of four dots indicates a higher number of hits of the search term than a series of three dots. A series of three dots a higher number of hits of the search term than a series of two dots and a series of two dots a higher number of hits than one dot .

Open the document by clicking on the symbol or the descriptive text in the shaded area. If the document is an HTML or a TEXT file it will display in your web browser. If it is a PDF file Acrobat Reader will open and the document will be displayed in Acrobat Reader. From here you can search the document for the specific data you are looking for. How you search for this data in TEXT and HTML files depends on the type of web browser you are using. How you search for data in PDF files is not browser dependent since you use Acrobat Reader and not a web browser to search for data in PDF files.

Searching for Text in HTML and TEXT Files

An HTML file ends with the extension .html (as in mydoc.html) and is identified on the search results page with this symbol . A TEXT file ends with the extention .txt (as in my doc.txt) and is identified with this symbol . (There is no descriptive text in the shaded area of a text file other than the name of the file itself (i.e., mydoc.txt) since TEXT files do not have tags and therefore do not have area in which to enter descriptive text.) Click on the symbol or the descriptive text in the shaded area and the document will open up in your web browser. Follow the instructions below to search for data within the document based on the type of web browser used to open the file.

Internet Explorer

Locate the terms or text you are looking for within the document by clicking Edit on the Toolbar, then clicking Find (on This Page). A box will then pop up. Note that there are several options available in the pop-up box that you may use to refine your search. Type the term you are looking for in the box (it is not case sensitive) and then click Find Next in the box. To continue searching for more instances of the same term just continue to click Find Next. To change the term simply type in a new term in the box and start over.

Netscape

Locate the terms or text you are looking for within the document by clicking Search on the Toolbar, then clicking Find in This Page. A box will then pop up. Note that there are several options available in the pop-up box that you may use to refine your search. Type the term you are looking for in the box (it is not case sensitive) and click Find. To continue searching for more instances of the same term just continue to click Find. To change the term simply type in a new term in the box and start over.

Searching for Text in PDF Files

A PDF file will most look like and print out like original document. A PDF file is one that ends with the extention .pdf (as in mydoc.pdf) and is identified on the search results list with this symbol . Click on the symbol or the descriptive text in the shaded area and the document will open up in your Adobe Acrobat Reader. Note that although your web browser toolbar is still a part of your window the functions of the toolbar do not work with this file since it is a PDF file. Rather, you must use the tools located in the Adobe Acrobat Reader Toolbar to search for information in the PDF file.

To search for text in the PDF file click on the icon (Find Button) that looks like a set of binoculars . A pop-up box will appear that says Find What. Type the term you are looking for in the box (it is not case sensitive) and click Find. To continue searching for the same term click continue to click Find Again. To change the term simply type in a new term in the box and start over. Note that there are several options available in the pop-up box that you may utilize to refine your search.

The Basic Functions of the Adobe Acrobat Toolbar

In order to fully utilize the functions of the Adobe Acrobat Reader it is helpful to become familiar with the Acrobat Reader Toolbar. To get started described below are some of the basic functions. Familiarity with these basic functions will help you to more efficiently view, search, print or save a PDF file. You can also refer to Reader Help under the Help function at the top right of the Toolbar for more information on how to use Acrobat Reader.

The Hand Tool button is used to move pages up and down the screen. The scroll bar at the side of your document can also be used for this purpose.

The Print button . Click on this button to bring up the print page to print out the document.

The Save a Copy button is used to save a copy of the document to a directory. (Note: will not work to save a fillable document in Acrobat Reader. A fillable document can only be saved with the full version of Adobe Acrobat 6.0.)
The Zoom In/Zoom Out button . Click on the + to make the document larger on the screen and on the - to make it smaller.

The Show/Hide Navigation Pane button . Click this button on/off to hide or show bookmarks or thumbnails in the document.

The Find button is used to search for text in the document. See instructions above to search for text in the document.

The First Page button . Click on this button to navigate to the first page of a document.

The Last Page button . Click on this button to navigate to the last page of a document.

The Previous Page button . Click on this button to navigate to the page previous to the one currently showing on the screen.

The Next Page button . Click on this button to navigate to the page after the one currently showing on the screen.