To find collocations of a word, you first make a search for that word and then use the collocation function.

1. Make a search for a word using whichever search option you prefer and download at least one hit (note that you can get collocations for all hits even if you only download one hit at this stage).
2. Open the collocation function by clicking on the Collocations icon or by choosing Collocation from the Query menu. The collocations window opens.
3. To find collocations with all matches to your query, make sure the tick-box in front of Downloads only is clear and simply click on the Calculate button (If you want collocations for downloaded hits only, tick the box in front of Downloads only).
4. You can control the way the collocations are calculated by using the options in the right-hand Controls part of the collocation window (if you cannot see a right-hand part of the collocation window, tick the box in front of Controls at the bottom right of the collocation window). The options are:

   Download

   This gives you the option to see all collocates, only ones that appear a minimum number of times, the ones with the hightest collocation score, or only ones whose score exceeds a certain threshold.

   Lemmata

   Select 'BNC' to base the collocation on lemmas, rather than word forms (BE gives you all instances of am, is, was, were etc).

   Window

   Use this to select the the window that is searched for collocates (words to the left and right of your item or within an XML tag, for example S for 'within one sentence' or u for 'within one spoken utterance') .

   Score

   Choose scoring algorithm used to calculate the strength of the collocation. You can also compare different scores for individual words.

   Colligation

   Tick Colligation and choose Additional key to calculate collocations between your search word and a particular tag (c5 -> full set of CLAWS C5 tags, Type -> simplified set of tags)

   The Collocations window has context-sensitive help files associated with it. Place the cursor at any point in the window and press F1 to read a short description of that point. You can also find more information in the Xaira Reference Guide.