Successful searching is largely about being precise.
The tips, techniques, and information here can help you search with precision and find what you need.
How ProQuest interprets your search
Operators, fields, and special characters
Search syntax conversion guide
A few basics
- Broaden your search - separate your search terms with OR.
- Narrow your search - separate your search terms with AND.
Note: By default, ProQuest assumes an AND relationship between your search terms. - Advanced Search - look for terms in specific fields used to index documents in ProQuest.
- Target your search more precisely - move your cursor over the Advanced Search link to display a menu of other advanced search methods:
- Phrase searching - look for phrases by enclosing them in quotation marks, for example, "healthy eating".
- Word variants - to retrieve only a particular variant of a word, such as colour but not color, enter the word in quotation marks in the search box, for example: "colour".
- Limit your search - select available limiter check boxes such as Full text or Peer-reviewed to focus your search.
Note: Available limiters vary by database and search method.
How ProQuest interprets your search
You can search by entering words into a search box without specifying search fields. When you do:
- ProQuest will retrieve documents containing all your search terms, appearing in any field (document titles, authors, subjects, full text, etc.).
For example, a search on healthy eating is the same as a search for healthy AND eating. The search will not retrieve results with just the word healthy or just the word eating. ProQuest will look for the terms healthy and eating in all fields. - Note: If your account does not search full text by default, a notice to that effect displays above the Basic Search box.
Operators, fields, and special characters
Note: You can enter operators in either lowercase or uppercase - OR will work the same as or.
| Operator | Description | Example |
|---|---|---|
| AND | Look for documents that contain all of your words or phrases. Use AND to narrow your search and get fewer results. |
food AND nutrition |
| OR | Look for documents that contain any of your words or phrases. Use OR to broaden your search and get more results. |
food OR nutrition |
| NOT | Look for documents that contain one of your search terms, but not the other. | nursing NOT shortage |
| NEAR/n or N/n | Look for documents that contain two search terms, in any order, within a specified number of words apart. Replace ‘n’ with a number. In the example, 3 means within 3 words. |
nursing NEAR/3 education media N/3 women |
| PRE/n or P/n | Look for documents that contain one search term that appears within a specified number of words before a second term. Replace ‘n’ with a number. In the example, 4 means the first term precedes the second term by 4 or fewer words. |
nursing PRE/4 education shares P/4 technologies |
| EXACT or X | Look for your exact search term in its entirety. Used primarily for searching specific fields, like Subject. For instance, a search on su.exact("higher education"), will return documents with a subject term of "higher education", but not documents with a subject term of "higher education funding". | SU.EXACT("higher education") SU.X("higher education") |
|
LNK |
Link a descriptor term to a Subheading (qualifier) by selecting the proper qualifier in the Thesaurus window, or by using the LNK (or --) in Basic, Advanced or Command Line Search. Also, link two related data elements together, to ensure proper specificity in your search. |
MESH(descriptor LNK qualifier) MESH(aspirin LNK "adverse effects") MESH(aspirin -- "adverse effects")
IND("dry eye") and RG(Canada) will retrieve documents where a drug has been indicated for treatment of dry eye in the region of Canada. |
You can also use operators to combine searches. See combining searches to learn more.
Operator precedence
ProQuest follows a default order when interpreting a search that uses operators to combine search terms. If your search includes operators such as AND or OR, ProQuest combines them in the order indicated below:
- NEAR
- PRE
- AND
- OR
- NOT
For example, the search:
education AND elementary NOT secondary
is interpreted in this order:
(education AND elementary) NOT secondary
Since education AND elementary is interpreted first, the search will return results on education that discuss elementary education, but not secondary education.
Note: For more controlled searching, use parentheses to override ProQuest's default operator precedence.
Search fields
Every document in every ProQuest database is indexed to capture individual bits of information about the document. You can use indexed search fields to create very precise searches.
For example, AU(smith) will retrieve only documents where smith appears in the author field. Similarly, AU(smith) and TI(food) will retrieve only documents with food in the title and smith as the author.
Separate codes with commas to search multiple fields at once.
For example:
- AB,TI(food) - retrieve documents that have food in the title, and documents that have food in the abstract.
- AB,TI(food or nursing) - retrieve documents that contain either food or nursing in the abstract, or in the title.
For more information, see frequently used search fields.
Target search query to multiple search fields at once
For more targeted searching, use multiple field codes with one search query.
- AB,TI(food) - retrieve documents that have food in the title, and documents that have food in the abstract.
- AB,TI(food or nursing) - retrieve documents that contain either food or nursing in the abstract, or in the title.
Wildcards and truncation
You can use wildcards and truncation when you're looking for documents that contain spelling variants, or words that begin with the same character string.
| Character | Description | Example |
|---|---|---|
| ? | Wildcard character - used to replace any single character, either inside or at the right end of a word. Multiple wildcards can be used to represent multiple characters. | nurse? Finds: nurses, nursed, but not nurse sm?th Finds: smith and smyth ad??? Finds: added, adult, adopt |
| * |
Truncation character (*) - one * for many characters. Use the truncation character at the beginning (left-hand truncation), the end (right-hand truncation), or in the middle of search terms. To specify a specific upper limit for term expansion, use term [*N]. The default range is 0-10 characters. |
nurse* [*5]beat Finds: upbeat, downbeat, offbeat, heartbeat |
| $n or [*n] | $n and [*n] are equivalent operators used to denote up to how many characters you want to truncate. |
nutr$5, nutr[*5] |
| < | Less than. Used for numeric fields like publication year. | YR(<2005) |
| > | Greater than. Used for numeric fields like publication year. | YR(>2005) |
| <= | Less than or equal to. Used for numeric fields like publication year. | YR(<=2005) |
| >= | Greater than or equal to. Used for numeric fields like publication year. | YR(>=2005) |
| - | Use a hyphen to indicate a range when searching numerical fields, such as Publication date. | YR(2005-2008) |
Subject searching
Qualifiers (subheadings)
Qualifiers help you focus your search on specific aspects of a subject. For example, use the "adverse effects" qualifier with a drug name to find documents about adverse effects of that drug.
You can search with qualifiers by using either of the following syntaxes:
-
MESH(aspirin LNK "adverse effects")
-
MESH(aspirin -- "adverse effects")
You can also use abbreviations for qualifiers in two databases - MEDLINE and EMBASE.
For example, use the abbreviation ae in place of adverse effects in MEDLINE:
MESH(acetaminophen -- ae)
Thesauri subject terms with qualifiers
Two thesauri, MeSH (MEDLINE) and EMBASE now provide the ability to view qualifiers associated with subject terms, then select them for use.
Subject searching with thesauri
With a thesaurus open, you can:
- Search for subject terms
- Browse all subject terms
- Add one or more subject terms to your search
See Thesaurus to learn more.
Search syntax conversion guide
In the new ProQuest Dialog, you may notice some search syntax differences related to the operators, truncation/wildcard characters, and field codes you've been using. This guide details those differences.
DataStar search syntax conversion guide