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Search Tips: Phrase Searching and Proximity Searching

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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
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