Point of care tools (Summaries & Guidelines)
Databases & search engines (Single studies)
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ASTERISK Use before, within or after word or string to replace multiple characters (note: do not separate a * from a word with a hyphen as then * will be dropped: eg. *-attack will be searched as attack, but *attack will find heart-attack etc.) e.g. computer* retrieves computer, computers, computerised, etc. |
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QUESTION MARK Depending on database, use before, within or after word or string to replace zero or one character e.g. colo?r retrieves color, colour |
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DOUBLE QUOTES Use to find loose phrases e.g TITLE-ABS-KEY( "heart attack") searches for documents where heart attack appear together in the title, abstract, or keywords, with out without a hyphen in between. Without the quotes this would search for heart and attack together or separately in the title , abstract or keywords. |
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BRACES To find documents that contain an exact phrase, enclose the phrase in braces. e.g. {heart-attack} and {heart attack} will return different results because the dash is included. |
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