GENERAL SEARCH TIPS for citation databases

Ruchareka AsavisanuStang Mongkolsuk Library and Information Division

Faculty of Science, Mahidol University

http://stang.sc.mahidol.ac.th

Refining your search with Boolean Operators

NOTES :NOTES : Different databases have different details. Check their “Help”“Help” files to find out what to use.

Boolean OperatorsBoolean Operators

And - combines search terms so that each search result contains all of the terms. For example : processor AND intel

Or - combines search terms so that each search result contains at least one of the terms. For example : acetaminophen OR tylenol

Not - excludes terms so that each search result does not contain any of the terms that follow it. For example : beam NOT laser

A B

Boolean / Logical Boolean / Logical OperatorsOperators

Named for George BooleGeorge Boole, an English mathematician (1815-1864), who developed Boolean algebraBoolean algebra

Implied Boolean Implied Boolean OperatorsOperators

In some search engines + and – signs can be used as alternatives to the Boolean operators AND and NOT. Automatic "and" Queries in Google

Vacation hawaii (= vacation AND hawaii) beam –laser (= beam NOT laser)

Automatic Exclusion of “ CommonWords”

Star Wars Episode +I or "Star Wars Episode I"

PhrasesPhrases

Enclosing terms in quotation marks forces a search engine to read them together as a phrase. “dna fingerprinting” “mars pathfinder” “fiber optic network”

NestingNesting

Enclose words or phrases in parentheses to specify the order of operation, as with mathematical equations. (“heart attack” OR “myocardial

infarction”) AND “high blood pressure”

Truncation (*) Symbol

Symbol used at the end of a word to retrieve variant endings of that word. For example : teen* retrieves teen OR teens OR

teenager OR teenagers However: cat* retrieves cat, cats, but also

cataclysm, catacomb, catalepsy, catalog, etc.

Wildcard (?) symbol

Some databases allow for wildcards to be embedded within a word to replace a single character. For example:

comp???tion retrieves composition, competition, computation, etc.

wom?n retrieves woman, women

Truncation (*) and Wildcard (?, $) in Web of Science database

* represents any group of characters, including no characters

? represents any single character $ represents one character or no

characters

en?oblast* finds endoblast , endoblasts ,entoblast , entoblasts

Hof$man$ W* finds Hofman , Hoffman ,Hoffmann , Hoffmanova

Truncation (!) and Wildcard (*) symbols

in ScienceDirect

Truncation : Use !  For example   : behav! would find "behave," "behaviour,"

"behavioural“ Wildcard : Use *

For example:   wom*n would find "woman " and "women“ transplant** would find "transplant,“

"transplanted," and "transplanter"

Proximity Operators

Near (N) - finds words near to one another  i n any order

Cattle N2 feeding finds cattle feeding, feeding cattle, feeding dairy cattle

Within (W) - finds words near to one anotherin the order in which they were typed

feeding W2 cattle finds feeding cattle, feedin g dairy cattle, feeding beef cattle, etc., but

not cattle feeding

Proximity Operators in ScienceDirect

Author Search smith W/1 r = R Smith and Smith, R raymond W/3 smith = Raymond Smith, Raymond J. Smith and Raymond J. A. Smith smith W/3 r! = R. Smith, Ray Smith, Raymond Smith,

R Smith and RJ Smith

Proximity (Adjacent) Operators

NEAR (n) WITHIN (w) ADJACENT (adj) WITH SAME (use in Web of Science database)

All terms separated by the operator must appear in the s ame subfield. (same sentence, same address)

e.g. fac sci SAME mahidol univ

Field SearchingField Searching(using Field Tags)(using Field Tags)

Author / AU Author [AU] Title / TI Title [TI] Abstract / AB Abstract [AB] AD = <address> SO= <journal name>

Keyword vs Subject Search

Two basic ways of searching for information in a database: keyword search = what you say;

words that you use to describe your topic

subject search = what they say;words used by professional indexers where all like topics are “indexed” under the same subject phraseEx. Medical subject headings (MeSH terms) in PudMed MEDLINE

Keyword vs Subject Heading

Keyword Any word that appears in any field of an

online record Search single words, phrases, and

combinations of words or phrases Powerful technique

Subject Heading Assigned using a controlled thesaurus Official list of standard acceptable

headings Library of Congress (LC) National Library of Medicine (NLM)