EBSCOhost Databases: Search Techniques at a glance

Truncation 

Useful for finding prefixes and alternative endings of a word

Cannot be used as the first character in a search term

The asterisk (*) can be used within words to find multiple characters

The asterisk (*) can be used between words to match any single word 

develop*

→ develop, develops, developing, development, developmental

midsummer*dream

→ midsummer nights dream, midsummer day's dream

Wildcards

Use for finding alternative spellings of a word

Cannot be used as the first character in a search term

Plural or possessive forms and synonyms for the word are not automatically searched

The question mark (?) replaces a single character within a word

Question marks at the end of words or character strings are not treated as wildcards they are automatically removed

The hashtag (#) replaces a single character within a word

organi?ation

→ organization, organisation

colo#r

→ color, colour

Plurals 

The singular form of a word finds plural and possessive forms of most words

If the plural is spelled differently use the "Applied related words" expander

carbon

→ carbon, carbons

baby

→ baby, baby's, babies

The hyphenated form finds both hyphenated and non-hyphenated forms

Non-hypenated forms are treated as separate words

Hyphenated words that are combined should be searched using the OR operator

video-games

→ video-game, video game, video-games, video games

video game

→ video game OR "video game" OR "video games"

full-time OR fulltime

Phrases

Double quotation marks for exact phrase searching

- Truncation is allowed

- Plural and possessive forms will not be searched with truncation

"cognitive behaviour therapy"

→ cognitive behaviour therapy, cognitive behavior therapy

"communication technolog*"

→ communication technology, communication technologies

Boolean Operators: AND, OR, NOT

Use Boolean operators to combine your search

Are not case sensitive

ORDER OF PRECEDENCE: AND takes precedence over OR

Use parentheses to override operator precedence

AND

Use AND to combine multiple concepts

OR

Use OR when you have similar words to describe a concept or topic

NOT

Use NOT to exclude results containing terms

The expression inside the parenthesis is executed first

At least one term must appear

→ liver OR cirrhosis

Both terms must appear

→ cognitive architecture AND robots

Exclude one term

→ lung NOT cancer

(heart OR lung) AND bypass

Nesting – (…)

Proximity Operators - NEAR operator (N), WITHIN operator (W)

The Proximity operator finds words within a certain distance from each other

Truncation is possible

The number cannot exceed 255

NEAR operator:  Nn - the n element says how many words between the two keywords, but not the order the words are in 

Entering terms without Boolean or proximity operator by default will be treated as NEAR 5 (N5) 

WITHIN operator: Wn - terms must appear within a certain distance and specific order between words 

tax N3 reform 

→ tax reform, reform of income tax

tax reform 

→ tax N5 reform

tax W3 reform

→ tax reform, tax reform Ireland

<not: reform of income tax>