You can specify all Verity operators except for the evidence operators (STEM, WILDCARD, and WORD) using prefix notation.
For instance, suppose you have several search words on which you want to use the NEAR operator. Instead of sticking <NEAR> between each word, you can just specify NEAR once and then put the list of words in parentheses. The following two lines are equivalent:
CRITERIA="sick <NEAR> days <NEAR> illness" CRITERIA="<NEAR>(sick,days,illness)"