Proximity (Adjacency) Searching vs Phrase Searching
When you're searching literature databases you might want to find a phrase. The easiest way to do this is to put the phrase in "speech marks".
E.g. "heart disease"
This will find that exact phrase - with the words next to each other in that order.
BUT...
You may be interested in variations on that phrase e.g. heart disease, disease of the heart, diseases of the heart, diseases of the human heart.
In that case it might be better to use a proximity/adjacency search - this allows you to find one
keyword next to another. Or one keyword within a specified number of words of the
other keyword.
When using a proximity search the keywords can be in any order.
Different Databases Use Different Proximity Operators
In Ovid Medline:
heart adj disease
finds the word heart next to the
word disease, in that order. (This is
the same as searching for the phrase, of course)
heart adj2 disease
finds the word heart within two
words of the word disease, but in either order, so will find heart disease,
disease of the heart.
You can use proximity operators
with the truncation symbol (see below), so:
heart adj3 disease*
finds heart disease, disease of
the heart, diseases of the heart, diseases of the human heart.
Other databases
- NHS databases -
the same as Ovid Medline
- EBSCO databases (PsycINFO, CINAHL, Business Source Premier, Historical Abstracts & others).
- Nn finds one word within n words of the other, in either order.
- Wn finds one word within n words of the other, in that order.
- Cochrane
- NEAR/n finds one word within n words of the other, in either order.
- NEXT finds two words adjacent to each other in that order (you cannot use truncation and phrase searching together in Cochrane, so this is an alternative).
- Web of Science - NEAR/n finds one word within n words of the other, in either order.
- Scopus
- Preceding (Pre/n): The first word must be no more that (n) words apart from the second word.
- Within (W/n): It doesn’t matter which word comes before the other