| Boolean Search | Boolean searches allow you to combine words and phrases using the words AND, OR, NOT (known as Boolean operators) to limit, broaden, or define your search. | ||
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AND - results will contain both terms OR - results will have at least one of the terms NOT - results will exclude this term |
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| Keyword and Subject Field Search | Keywords may be author-supplied within | ||
| Default database searches generally search for queries across multiple sections of of an article, such as: all authors, all subjects, all keywords, all titles, and all abstracts. |
Avoid using uppercase in EBSCOhost. Search Field codes employ capitalized two-character strings and if your search correlates to one, EBSCOhost will apply that search field, returning unexpected results |
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| Searching with Quotations | Utilize quotations when you require keywords to appear as a phrase, exactly how you have them typed. | ||
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Databases vary in how they process queries with and without quotations. Some, for example, process words typed together as phrases, whether or not you use quotation marks |
Phrase searches can help exclude false search hits as some concepts some words will allude to different concepts based on whether they appear together or not. "Skin" and "cancer" can be separate concepts or combined to refer to Many concepts do not need to be conveyed through a singular phrase. Using quotation marks can end up excluding similarly topical resources. "Vegetable quality" will return results but may not provide related results such as: "quality attributes of vegetables" "microbial quality of vegetables" "produce quality evaluation" |
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| Truncated Search | Employ truncated searches for expanded and flexible results. | ||
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Do not limit your search to full text articles. Most databases link to full text articles in other databases using the Full Text Finder Link. The link will not display if you limit your results to full text.
It is almost impossible to keep up with current literature in the health care professions. PubMed alone adds citations to over half a million articles each year. Some databases have a feature that allows you to save searches and automatically run them on a regular basis. Some databases have a feature where you can set up an email alert when content is added that matches your search parameters.
