Database |
Truncation |
Wildcard: 0 or 1 character |
Wildcard: Exactly 1 character |
Phrase |
Proximity |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
OVID databases
|
* or $ or : Examples: pharm$ will find: pharmacy, pharmacist, pharmaceutical…. Child* will find: children, childbirth, child-centred, childhood… |
? Examples: flavo?r P?ediatric |
# Example: wom#n |
Quotation marks only needed if there's a word like "and," "or" or "use" in your phrase: Examples: “Sensitivity and Specificity” “Substance use disorder” |
adjn (adj=adjacent and "n" is the number of words)
Example: environment* adj3 health will find environment, environmental etc. within 3 words of health. |
* Note: truncation stops automatic mapping to MeSH |
* Note: there must be 4 characters before first wildcard. Wildcard stops automatic mapping to MeSH |
* Note: there must be 4 characters before first wildcard. Wildcard stops automatic mapping to MeSH |
“your phrase” Note: phrase searching stops automatic mapping to MeSH, and does not always find results |
"search terms"[Field:~n] Available for title and abstract only. Example: "nursing education"[Title/Abstract:~2] |
|
EBSCO databases
|
*
|
# Examples: flavo#r P#ediatric |
? Example: wom?n |
“your phrase” |
Nn or Wn (N= Near, W= Within and "n" is the number of words) Example: |
|
* Web of Science allows left-sided truncation as well as right-sided. Example: *statin will find: atorvastatin, simvastatin, pravastatin… |
$ for exactly 0-1 characters * for 0-multiple characters
|
? |
“your phrase” |
NEAR/n You can specify n number of words; or if you just type NEAR, the default range is within 15 words. |
Scopus |
* Scopus automatically searches for plurals and applies stemming |
? Scopus automatically includes spelling variants |
? Scopus automatically includes spelling variants |
"your phrase" loose phrase - searches for words in same field (title, abstract, or keyword), but not necessarily as an exact phrase. {exact phrase} Use curly brackets to look only for exact phrase. Note that hyphens count - eg, {COVID 19} and {COVID-19} will find different results. Can't use truncation or wildcards with exact phrase searching. |
W/n (words in any order within n words of each other) PRE/n (looks for words only in the order they are entered) |
Proquest databases *note: consider changing the drop-down next to the search box to "NOFT" instead of "anywhere" when searching these databases |
* |
* for up to 5 characters in middle of word |
? | "your phrase" |
NEAR/n (if you don't specify n, default is 4) PRE/n (looks for words only in the order they are entered) |
|
|
? |
"your phrase" Note that * and ? are ignored within quotes |
"word1 word2"~n ("n" is the number of words) |
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