The source card

When what you type looks like a quotation, or names a verse, a card appears above the results naming the passage it most likely comes from. It is an extra, not a result: the cards below are the ordinary search on your words, unchanged.

When it appears

Two kinds of search earn a source card. The first is a quotation of three words or more that appears word for word somewhere in the libraries. The lookup uses your first quoted phrase if there is one, otherwise everything you typed.

A short search without quotation marks (six words or fewer), or a question ending in "?", gets a card only when the words are a scripture verse's own: "charity never faileth" shows Moroni 7, but "what happens after we die" shows no card, even though some talk contains those words. Put a short phrase in quotation marks to look up its source anyway. A paste of two or more consecutive verses also shows no card for now, rather than a talk that quoted them.

The second is a scripture reference. The card then shows the verse itself; see Looking up a scripture reference.

The card sits full width above the first row of results. The lookup is given about a second and a half; if it runs longer, there is simply no card.

Two seals

A black "Exact match" seal means the tool is confident: a verse when only one verse carries the words, or a talk or article that is the earliest to use them and is not quoting someone else. A yellow "Likely match" seal means the pick is less certain, because several verses fit or the earliest document may itself be quoting. A card found from a quoted phrase inside a longer search is always a likely match, since only part of what you typed was matched. That card adds "Best guess — confirm in the results below."

When more than one document could be the source, scripture wins. Among the rest, the earliest document is chosen.

What the card shows

• The seal, and a badge in the library's color.
• The title, and a byline with the speaker or author, the venue and the year. A scripture card is titled by its verse, such as Alma 32:21, and its byline is the volume the verse belongs to, such as Book of Mormon.
• A window of about 320 characters around your words, with the words you typed highlighted and "..." where the text is cut. A reference shows the whole verse, with nothing highlighted.
• "Copy quote and attribution": the full passage in quotes, a blank line, then the title and byline, then the address. The format is described in Citations and links.
• "Open the original source", which opens the passage in a new tab.
• An echo strip, "N sources cite this" (or "quote this" for a verse), when other documents quote the same words. "See everything" lists up to 20 of them, earliest first, each linking to its source.

When it stays away

A search that carries SPEAKER:, AUTHOR:, TOPIC:, INCLUDE or EXCLUDE gets no phrase card. A scripture reference is the exception: its card appears whatever else is in the search.

To turn the card off altogether, open Settings, choose the Advanced tab and switch off "Surface exact-phrase source card". That hides reference cards too. The results list does not change either way.

The card is saved with the search, so it is there again when you reopen a search from your history, and it is included when you share the results. More on quoted phrases in Exact phrases with quotes.