Your Searches
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Glossary Item Box

ProQuest records each search that you conduct during your current session. This search history is presented on the Recent searches page. After you've run at least one search during your current session, a Recent searches link to that page is available on the following search forms, as well as from the blue bar at the top of the page:

Important to know: Your recent searches are not saved beyond your current ProQuest session. To make them available for future sessions, you can save them to a My Research account. Alternatively, if you are already accessing ProQuest using a My Research account, you can pause your current session and return to it at any time for up to 4 hours. Your Recent searches will be available when you restart your paused session.

Check out the benefits of having a My Research account.

Your recent searches

When you click a Recent searches link, the Recent searches page displays.

You can:

Recent searches and sets in ProQuest Dialog

As you run searches in ProQuest Dialog, each search—also called a set—during your current session is recorded on the Recent searches tab. Your searches are listed in reverse chronological order—most recent to oldest. A control lets you reverse the order. Each listed recent search has a corresponding set number—S1, S2, etc. You can use the corresponding set numbers (or the original search terms) to combine and rerun searches. For example, if your first search was for medicine, and your second search was for polio, you could combine the two searches into a single string on the Basic Search, Advanced Search, or Command Line Search pages as either:

medicine AND polio
or:
s1 AND s2

Both searches will find the same results.

Saving searches in ProQuest

If you are signed into a My Research account, you can save a search by clicking a Save search link on your results list or on Recent Searches.

Your saved search will be available on the Searches tab in My Research.

Saving searches in ProQuest Dialog

If you are signed into a My Research account, you can save a search by clicking a Save search link from the following locations in the interface:

When you click a Save search link, the Save search popup displays with two links:

Save just this search

In the Save search layer, enter a (required) name, a project code and optional note. Your saved search will be available on the Searches tab in My Research.

Save recent sets with this search

A set is a search and its corresponding results. Run a search and a set is created. When you click Save recent sets with this search, the Save Search page displays. The page lists all of the searches you’ve run during your current session. The listing is in reverse chronological order, with your most recent search listed first. If the search you are saving references any previous sets—for example, if your search is s1 OR s3—, those sets (the first and third searches you ran during your session)—are automatically selected for you on the Save Search page. You can optionally select additional sets to save with your search.

Your saved searches

Click the Searches tab in My Research to see your saved searches. In addition to the tasks listed above for your recent searches, you can:

Multiple-set search strategies in ProQuest Dialog

A search strategy can be as short as a single search, or as long as one hundred. Expert researchers often run, evaluate, and refine many searches during their session, before they are satisfied with the results of their final search.

If you’ve saved sets with your search, this text line displays with the search on the Saved Searches page:

Search strategy contains multiple sets

Adjacent to the text is a Show/Hide toggle link. Click the link to show/hide the complete list of sets saved with a search.

Important to know — If you’ve imported a search from a legacy DataStar account, click the View DataStar query to compare the original set structure with what displays when you click the Show (search strategy) link.

Modifying multiple-set search strategies in ProQuest Dialog

For any listed search saved with sets, click the Edit search strategy link to display a page of the same name. On that page, you can:

Combine searches - using operators

Operator Description Example
AND Narrow your search - look for documents that are relevant to both of your searches S1 AND S2
OR Broaden your search - look for documents that are relevant to any of your searches S1 OR S2
NOT Find documents that contain one of your searches but not the other S1 NOT S2
NEAR Find documents that contain two searches, in any order, within a specified number of words apart. S1 NEAR/3 S2

Retrieves all items where your first set of terms was found within 3 words of your second set of terms.

PRE Find documents that contain one search set that appears within a specified number of words before a second search set S1 PRE/6 S2

Retrieves all items where your first set of terms was found within 6 words before your second set of terms.

Combining search with the NEAR and PRE operators

Combining searches with the NEAR and PRE operators will only work if the original searches you want to combine were done in the same field.

For example, S1 PRE/3 S2 is a valid combined search if search 1 is TI(energy) and search 2 is TI(renewable), but not if search 2 is SU(renewable).

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