Information retrieval systems often use stemming, i.e., the mechanical cutting off of inflectional and derivational affixes, to better match index terms to query terms. Stemming results differ, however, based on the affix list used, the depth of linguistic analysis applied, and the complexity of the language being analyzed. This report provides an overview of stemming, including its advantages and disadvantages for search applications and reviews the query syntax used in the Argus retrieval system. The report also presents guidance for analysts in performinig searches in Newsstand, with specific examples from several languages. In addition, the behavior of two specific systems – the stemmers for Arabic and Farsi (Persian) – are discussed in more detail. This report is intended for analysts performing search queries in Argus.