Search Tips: Phrase Searching and Proximity Searching

Phrase searching

Normally when you put two words into a database search it will find those two words anywhere in the title/abstract/keywords:

It will do an AND search = diabetes AND mellitus

If you want to force the database to do a phrase search then enclose it in “speech marks”

“diabetes mellitus” = those words next to each other, in that order

Most of the main literature databases we subscribe to at the University of Leicester support phrase searching using speech marks, as do the search engines Google and Google Scholar.

However, Scopus treats phrases in "speech marks" as loose phrases, so to do an exact phrase search in Scopus use {curly brackets} around the phrase instead.

Extra Tip: Make sure when typing in speech marks that you use the double speech mark symbol " rather than typing in two apostrophes.

Proximity (Adjacency) Searching

Finds one keyword within a specified number of words of the other, in any order:

Diabetes ADJ4 “Type 2” = will find Diabetes within four words of Type 2

i.e. this will find Diabetes Type 2, Diabetes Mellitus Type 2, Type 2 Diabetes, Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus

This type of searching is particularly useful when you have a number of phrases that may be used to describe the same thing, as with the example above.

Databases use different proximity operators (ADJ, NEAR, N) – check the database help pages.

For example, 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.

Examples of Proximity Operators in other databases (adjacent, near, within):

NHS Databases = adj1, adj2 etc.
EbscoHost Databases (e.g. APA PsycInfo, CINAHL, Business Source Premier) = N1, N2 etc.
The Cochrane Library = NEAR/1, NEAR/2 etc.
Web of Science = NEAR/1, NEAR/2 etc.
Scopus = W1, W2 etc.

University of Leicester staff and students can get help with their search strategies by emailing librarians@le.ac.uk

Image by Peggy und Marco Lachmann-Anke from Pixabay

Searching ABS Journals in Business Source Premier

In Business and Management Studies, researchers undertaking a literature review sometimes search across a defined group of journals. This is a way of focusing the literature search to make the results more relevant to the questions in hand. Groups are often chosen from the Association of Business Schools (ABS)'s Academic Journal Guide . Read more how about how they put together the guide here . There are several ways to search across ABS journals. Here is how to do it in Business Source Premier, a leading literature database for this subject area. 1. Login into the ABS journal guide. If you have never used it before you will need to create an account. 2. You can use the guide to draw up a group of journals either by using the Rankings information or the Fields. Fields divides up the journals into categories of research focus e.g. Accounting, Finance etc. In this example we will use the Fi...

You can now export multiple citations from Google Scholar

You can now export multiple citations from Google Scholar if you have a Google Account. Go to Google Scholar and sign into your Google Account. Conduct your search. Click on the Star icon (Save) under each reference you want to export. Then click on My Library in the top, right of the screen. Select all the references and click on the Export option: Click the Star/Save Icon Choose Export Option To Export into EndNote Choose the EndNote option. Open the EndNote file that is created. The references should automatically import into EndNote. To Export into RefWorks Choose the RefMan option. Save the RIS file that is created. Login to your RefWorks account. Click on the plus (+) button. Choose Import References. Add the RIS file you just saved. Set the file import option to RIS - Reference Manager. Click import and your references will be imported. --- Good Practice Tip: Always check that all the reference information you need has been...

How to find a Journal Impact Factor

What is a Journal Impact Factor? An impact factor is a measurement provided by Thomson Reuters looking at the average number of citations articles in a particular journal receives. It is calculated by: The number of times that all items published in a journal in the previous two years (e.g. 2012 & 2013) were cited by indexed publications during the year of interest (e.g. 2014) divided by The total number of "citable items" published by that journal in those two years (e.g. 2012 & 2013) Finding a Journal Impact Factor Go to Web of Science In Web of Science - Click on the link at the top of the page for Journal Citation Reports. Start typing the name of the journal and choose from the list that appears: Remember - not all journals are indexed by the Journal Citation Reports, so not all journals have an impact factor. You will then get an option to click on the Journal Profile, which includes the Impact Factor: Find th...

DWLresearch

Search This Blog