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ASTERISK Depending on the database or platform, use before (uncommon feature, available in Web of Science and Scopus, for example), within (as a wildcard, depends on database/platform), or at the end of a word root or string (most common option) to replace zero to multiple characters. For more information, please see the search tips (below or within the database/platform help files) on wildcard/truncation options available in commonly used databases or platforms in health sciences e.g. computer* retrieves computer, computers, computerised, computerized, etc. |
The database searching tips are provided for researchers interested in applying more advanced techniques to their searches. Advanced search techniques can include Boolean logic, use of parentheses to force the proper execution of Boolean logic, quotations to force phrase searching or to turn off lemmatization (this is database-dependent), truncation, wildcards, proximity operators, and specifying search fields (such as title, subject, etc.).
Truncation/ Wildcards |
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Phrases/ Parentheses |
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Proximity operators |
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Search fields (examples) |
Default "Select a field (optional)" (i.e., unqualified searching): Searches Title, abstract, subject headings Note: To execute unqualified searches, uncheck "Suggest Subject Headings" TX: All Text (in CINAHL Plus with Full Text, will search full text available within the CINAHL database) TI: Title e.g., TI ("primary care" OR "primary health care" OR "primary healthcare") AU: Author AF: Author affiliation AB: Abstract EM: Entry date (date record was added to the database); can be searched as a range, e.g., EM 20151119- will search for records added on November 19, 2015 to the present PT: Publication type MH: Subject heading MM: Major subject heading JN: Publication name (exact) e.g., JN American journal of nursing retrieves the articles published in American journal of nursing PY: Year of publication e.g., PY 2000 retrieves articles published in 2000 SO: Words in publication name e.g., SO art therapy retrieves records published in the International Journal of Art Therapy OR the Journal of the American Art Therapy Association etc. SU: Subject fields (search terms within subject headings fields, including major subject headings or minor subject headings) Multiple search fields: Combine with OR e.g., TI ("primary care" OR "primary health care" OR "primary healthcare") OR AB ("primary care" OR "primary health care" OR "primary healthcare") |
Subject headings |
CINAHL Headings Explode Represented by the + sign at the end of the subject heading (SH): Expands results to include records with the SH you originally selected, PLUS all of the subject headings in its family hierarchy e.g., (MH "Pregnancy in Diabetes+") will search for records indexed with "Pregnancy in Diabetes" OR "Diabetes Mellitus, Gestational" OR "Fetal Macrosomia" Major concept Represented by MM (instead of MH): Retrieves articles where indexers consider your topic to be of major significance e.g., (MM "Pregnancy in Diabetes"); can be combined with Explode, e.g., (MM "Pregnancy in Diabetes+") |
To use these operators and fields, go to advanced search > Select search manager tab
Truncation/ Wildcards |
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Phrases/ Parentheses |
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Proximity operators |
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Search fields (examples) |
No field specified: Searches all fields, including full text when available (e.g., full text of Cochrane Reviews) :ti Title e.g., screening:ti :ab Abstract :kw Keywords (includes MeSH terms but does not allow for term explosion) :au Author :pt Publication type (used in CENTRAL only) e.g., journal:pt :so Source (title of journal, conference name, report name, etc.) :an Accession number e.g., (PubMed):an AND 29891957:an :crg Cochrane Review Group e.g., "Airways":crg Multifield searching: Separate the field tags with commas: :ti,ab,kw |
Subject headings |
MeSH Use the MeSH Tab to search the thesaurus MeSH terms are assigned to Cochrane Reviews and Trials from MEDLINE Note: Not necessary to use MeSH terms if you are already using the same MeSH terms in a MEDLINE search for the same project (e.g., if conducting a systematic review and searching multiple databases) -- they are redundant |
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Phrase/ Parentheses |
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Proximity and frequency operators |
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Search fields (examples) |
.ab. : Abstract .au. : Author .dj.: Candidate terms are "new concepts which are not in Emtree and were proposed during indexing because they were judged to be a useful addition to Emtree"; this field is searched when using .mp. .in. : Author affiliations. "This information is not standardized and often contains abbreviations. Enter the single most descriptive word in an institution. Consider both full spellings and abbreviations." e.g., prefer mcgill.in. over mcgill university.in. .kw. : Words or phrases in author keyword field .jn. : Exact journal name e.g., "American journal of human biology: the official journal of the Human Biology Council".jn. retrieves article records from the American journal of human biology: the official journal of the Human Biology Council .jx.: Word or phrase in journal name e.g., "american journal of human biology".jn. retrieves article records from the American journal of human biology: the official journal of the Human Biology Council or the American journal of human biology .mp. : "multi-purpose" (database dependent); in Embase, searches ti,ab,hw,tn,ot,dm,mf,dv,kw,fx,dq. .pt. : Publication type e.g., review.pt. .sh. : EMTREE (subject headings in Embase); note: this will not include narrower terms of the subject heading in your search, but does include candidate terms (dj), which are not searched when using mapped subject headings e.g., exp papillomaviridae/ is preferred over papillomaviridae.sh. for comprehensiveness, if you are interested in all forms of papillomaviridae .ti. : Title .ti,ab,kw,dj. : Title (ti) or abstract (ab) or author keyword (kw) or candidate terms (dj) in Embase; alternative to .mp. when trying to avoid subject headings that also contain the terms of interest .tw. : Text word, which is title (ti) or abstract (ab) or drug trade name (tn) in Embase (NOT full text); same as searching .ti,ab,tn. in Embase .yr. : Year of publication |
Subject headings |
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Phrase/ Parentheses |
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Proximity operators |
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Search fields (examples) |
Default "Select a field (optional)": Title, Author, Subjects (Descriptors/Identifiers), Institution Name, Core Subjects, and the Abstract Summary TX: All Text, searches all of ERIC's searchable fields TI: Title AU: Author AB: Abstract DE: Subject headings/descriptors (phrase indexed) searches exact subject heading descriptors EM: Entry date in the format CCYY KW: Keywords or identifiers, performs a keyword search for terms describing the article JN: Journal name, searches exact journal name LA: Language PY: Year of Publication SU: Subject headings/descriptors (word indexed), searches subject headings that briefly describe the item's content |
Subject headings |
ERIC Thesaurus; use Thesaurus link in top left-hand corner to find descriptors and to include narrower terms (via Explode) |
Truncation/ Wildcards |
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Phrase/ Parentheses |
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Proximity and frequency operators |
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Search fields (examples) |
.ab. : Abstract .au. : Author .cl. : Collection .in. : Institution .kf. : Words or phrases in author keyword field .jn. : Journal name e.g., American journal of human biology.jn. retrieves article records from the American Journal of Human Biology .mp. : "multi-purpose" (database dependent); in MEDLINE, searches ti,ab,ot,nm,hw,fx,kf,ox,px,rx,ui,sy. .pt. : Publication type .sh. : MeSH (subject headings in MEDLINE); note: it is preferred to use subject heading mapping to take advantage of exploding a subject heading to include narrower terms .so. : Source .ti. : Title .ti,ab,kf. : Title or abstract or author keyword IN MEDLINE .tw. : Text word, which is usually title or abstract (NOT full text) .yr. : Year of publication |
Subject headings |
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Truncation/ Wildcards |
* At the end or in the middle of a string retrieves variations of a search term (replaces up to 5 characters) [*n] is used to denote how many characters you want to truncate e.g., computer* retrieves computer, computers, computerised, etc.; colo*r retrieves color, colour, colocator e.g., econom[*2] retrieves economy or economic, but not economies ? Used to replace any single character either inside or at the right end of a word e.g. nurse? retrieves nurse, nurses, nursed |
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Lemmatization | Used by default; to turn off automatic searching for spelling variants and lemmatiziation, use " " |
Phrase/ Parentheses |
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Proximity operators |
NEAR/n Retrieves records that contain your terms (in any order) within a specified number (n) of words of each other. Defaults to a maximum of four words between your terms. e.g. biologist NEAR/5 relationship retrieves records that contain the words biologist and relationship within five words of each other in either direction.
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Search fields (examples) |
Some search fields are database dependent To search anywhere in the record, do not specify a search field. e.g., (tornado* OR hurricane* OR "natural disaster*") NOFT: Anywhere except full text e.g., NOFT("physical therapy")
ADV: Advisor - available in ProQuest Dissertations and Theses Global AU: Author AB: Abstract FT: Searches for terms in body of the article (note: full text is not necessarily available in ProQuest databases) LA: Language e.g., LA(french) PU: Publication title e.g., PUB(wall street journal) SCH: School name/code - available in ProQuest Dissertations and Theses Global SU: Subjects (all) TI: Document title Search across multiple fields by separating field codes with a comma e.g., TI,AB,SU("physical therapy")
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Subject headings |
We recommend switching from Best Match to Most Recent sort order when developing a comprehensive search strategy. Best Match is now the default.
Truncation/ Wildcards |
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Lemmatization | When automatic term mapping is on, lemmatization is applied using tools including the Specialist Lexicon from UMLS |
Phrases/ Parentheses |
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Proximity | Not available; use AND instead |
Search fields (examples) |
Search field codes can be in upper- or lowercase (Boolean operators must be in uppercase) [mh] or [Mesh] or [MeSH Terms]: MeSH terms [majr] or [MeSH Major Topic]: MeSH Major Topic [tiab] or [Title/Abstract]: Title or abstract or author keywords [tw] or [Text Word]: Title or abstract or author keywords or entry terms (Note: PubMed does not search full text) [title] or [ti]: Title [ot] or [Other Term]: Author keywords [au]: Author e.g., Pai M[au] retrieves records listing authors with the first initial or first name starting with M (without middle initials) and last name Pai [pdat]: Publication year [pt]: Publication type e.g., "randomized controlled trial"[pt] |
Subject headings |
MeSH terms Use parentheses around MeSH terms to enforce their exact use e.g., nursing[mesh] will search for "nursing"[mesh] OR "breast feeding"[mesh], while "nursing"[mesh] will only search for "nursing"[mesh]
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Truncation/ Wildcards |
Wildcards can be used anywhere in the word, even at the beginning * Represents any number of characters, even 0 e.g., computer* retrieves computer OR computers OR computerised OR computerized etc. ? Represents any single character e.g., wom?n retrieves woman OR women |
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Lemmatization | Used by default; searching using lemmatization and equivalents can be turned off with curly brackets { } |
Phrase/ Parentheses |
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Proximity operators |
PRE/n Preceded by n Retrieves articles that contains your words, in your given order, within a specified number (n) of words of each other e.g. primary PRE/1 *care finds articles in which primary precedes care (or, as also relevant, healthcare) by one or fewer words
W/n Within n Replaces the n with a number to specify the maximum number of words that separate the terms. e.g., parent* W/5 relationship* finds articles in which parent and relationship are no more than 5 words apart |
Search fields (examples) |
NO FIELD specified: () = A search of the entire record, including the list of references AFFIL() = Affiliation fields, including AFFILCITY OR AFFILCOUNTRY OR AFFILORG ALL() = Searches full record (ABS, AFFIL, ARTNUM, AUTH, AUTHCOLLAB, CHEM, CODEN, CONF, DOI, EDITOR, ISBN, ISSN, ISSUE, KEY, LANGUAGE, MANUFACTURER, PUBLISHER, PUBYEAR, REF, SEQBANK, SEQNUMBER, SRCTITLE, VOLUME, and TITLE) AUTH () = Author fields, including AUTHLASTNAME OR AUTHFIRST PUBYEAR = Publication Year e.g., PUBYEAR > 2009 searches references published in 2010 or later; PUBYEAR < 2011 searches references published in 2010 or earlier; PUBYEAR = 2010 searches references published in 2010 TITLE () = Title e.g., TITLE(Therapy) retrieves records in which therapy (or synonyms, based on system's synonym finder, aka lemmatization dictionary) is in the title TITLE-ABS-KEY() = Title OR Abstract OR Keywords - searches Title OR Abstract OR Keywords, which includes Author Keywords (AUTHKEY) OR Indexing Terms (INDEXTERMS) OR Trade Names (TRADENAME) OR Chemical Names (CHEMNAME) |
Subject headings |
Contained in the INDEXTERMS fields Includes index terms (subject headings) from the following thesauri:
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Lemmatization | Used by default in topic (TS) and title (TI) field searches; lemmatization and stemming are not used in combination with quotations or when search terms contain wildcards |
Phrase/ Parenthesis |
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Proximity operators |
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Search fields (examples) |
TI= Title e.g., TI=(Therapy) retrieves records in which therapy (or related terms based on lemmatization and spelling variants) is in the title TS = Topic - searches Title, Abstract, Author Keywords, and Keywords Plus (more information) AB = Abstract (lemmatization does not work when specifically searching this field) AK = Author keywords (lemmatization does not work when specifically searching this field) KP = Keywords Plus (lemmatization does not work when specifically searching this field) (more information) AD = Address (more information) AU = Author (more information) PY = Year Published |
Subject headings |
Not available |
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