> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: /docs/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Writing queries

> Ask in plain words or keywords, in any language, and exclude terms with NOT.

`q` is what you are looking for: a question in plain words, or keywords with
`AND`, `OR` and `NOT`. It can be in any language and up to 500 characters long.

```text Plain words theme={null}
What did central banks decide about interest rates this week?
```

```text Keywords theme={null}
ECB OR "Federal Reserve"
```

```text With NOT theme={null}
Apple NOT iPhone
```

## Excluding terms with NOT

Put an upper-case `NOT` before a term or a quoted phrase to drop the articles
that mention it: `Tesla recall NOT Cybertruck`, `NOT "model y"`.

* `NOT` checks the headline, the description and the summary.
* The response lists the excluded terms in `excluded`.
* `NOT` must be upper-case.

To leave out whole languages, countries or publishers, use `not_languages`,
`not_countries` and `not_sources`. See [Filters](/docs/news/filters.md).

## Languages

Articles in every language are searched through their English translation, so
an English query finds German, Japanese or Arabic articles too.

If every language you ask for in `languages` is not English, the search runs in
the original language instead. Use this to search in the language itself. Languages are
[ISO 639-1 codes](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_639-1):

```bash theme={null}
curl -X POST "https://api.newscatcherapi.com/news-api/search" \
  -H "x-api-key: $NEWSCATCHER_API_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"q": "Bundestag Haushalt", "languages": ["de"]}'
```

`zh` is searched as `cn` (simplified Chinese). Traditional Chinese is `tw`.

## Tips

* Say what happened, not only who: `Nvidia export restrictions China` finds
  more of what you want than `Nvidia`.
* Use quotes for exact names and phrases: `"Silicon Valley Bank"`.
* Put the time window in `search_window`, not in `q`.
* Narrow with [filters](/docs/news/filters.md) instead of long keyword lists.


This documentation is built and hosted on [Mintlify](https://mintlify.com), a developer documentation platform.