Filtering by topic

Every talk and article in the libraries carries a few topics from a reviewed list. TOPIC: keeps results to documents tagged with one of them. That is different from searching for a word: a talk tagged Temple is about the temple even in the paragraphs that never use the word.

How to write it

Put the topic right after the colon, with no space. A one-word topic needs no quotes; a longer name goes in double quotes, straight or curly. The short form from a topic page's address works as well, so topic:book-of-mormon and TOPIC:"Book of Mormon" are the same filter. Capitals do not matter, and the operator can go anywhere in the query.

The name must match exactly

TOPIC: does not guess. The name has to match a topic on the list, or one of that topic's other accepted names, or the search returns nothing and the empty page says so: "TOPIC: needs an exact topic name: pick one from the search suggestions."

The easiest way to get it right is to pick the topic from the suggestions dropdown. As you type, topics are listed after people, with names that start with your text first. Only topics that have tagged documents are offered. Choosing one puts TOPIC:"Name" in the box in place of what you had typed, so add your words after it, or press Enter to search by the topic alone.

Up to three topics count in one query, and a result must carry every one of them. Each shows as a pill under the search bar labeled Topic; the pill's X removes it from the box without running a new search.

Narrowing from a result card

Expand a result card with the chevron at its bottom to see up to three topic chips at the bottom of the expanded card. The funnel button beside a chip, "Narrow this search to X", adds that topic to your query and runs the search again. It declines, with a short message, when the topic is already applied, when the query already has three topics, or when the box holds an unclosed quotation mark. Clicking the chip's name instead opens its topic page in a new tab.

See also Filtering by speaker or author and the operator cheat sheet.