Where did all the pages go: Getting
results from searches
If your searches return too much or too little information
you may need a quick refresher on search terms and search syntax.
Search terms:
The words expected to appear in the documents
(but sometimes not the ones that do). If you are coming up empty or
too full, look at your search terms:
- Check the case.
- The search engine used at
the Clinical Center interprets "Cancer" (mixed case) differently from
"CANCER" and "cancer." All uppercase or all lowercase will bring up
every instance of the word, including mixed case. Mixed case will
only bring up exact matches including case.
- If you are not certain
how the term appears in the document, lower case will give you
more to choose from.
If you are looking for a known mixed case occurrence, mixed case
will reduce the results you have to sift through.
- Try using synonyms or related terms.
- Extend your search by using related
terms. (See Search Syntax below for suggestions on joining terms.)
- Convert phrases to simple terms.
- If a search for an explicit
phrase fails, try searching on the simple terms instead (see
syntax hints below).
- Instead of "intravenous
injection," try "intravenous, injection"
- Use * to expand the search to include variants
of words.
- Sometimes words can be misspelled,
or variants may be used. Using a wildcard (*) with the stem of the
word may be helpful.
- "Pharmac*"
will include pharmacology, pharmacotherapy, pharmaceutical, and
other variants containing the root "pharmac."
Search syntax: The
words for joining terms so the search engine can get to the document
you want, or at least within sighting distance.
- AND
- All terms joined with "AND"
must appear in all documents. If one in a list of ten search terms
is missing from a document, that document will not show up on the
results list.
- "Intravenous and injection"
will find all documents that contain both terms
"Intravenous injection" will only find documents that contain
the two words together as a phrase.
- OR
- As long as any of the terms
joined with "OR" show up in a document, it will make the list.
- "Pharmaceutical or drug
or medicine" will find all documents that contain any one of
the terms.
- NOT
- "NOT" is used to exclude documents
containing a term.
- "Nutrition not pediatric" results
in a list of documents that do include the term "nutrition"
but do not include "pediatric."
Note that the following
search modifiers are surrounded by "<" and ">."
- < NEAR >
- "< NEAR > " is very
much like "AND" in that all terms must be in all documents. The
difference is that " < NEAR > " specifies that terms must
occur within 5 words.
- "Intravenous < NEAR > injection"
will list documents containing "intravenous" and "injection" occurring
within 5 words of each other. It will provide a larger number
of results than "intravenous injection," but fewer than "intravenous
and injection."
- < ORDER >
- "< ORDER > " is used
with < NEAR > to specify the order in which words appear.
The word order must follow that of the search.
- "Adverse < order > < near
> reaction" will list "adverse reaction, adverse drug
reaction," or any other phrase in which which adverse comes 5
or fewer words before reaction. Results will not include any documents
in which word order is reversed such as "reaction was adverse."
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Quick Tips
Words
Separate words with spaces.
Use lower case to find all instances: capitalized,
lower case, and mixed.
Search terms with capitalization or punctuation
will return only exact matches.
Phrases
A capitalized string of words is searched for
as a phrase.
To search for an exact phrase, surround it with
double quotation marks.
Separate series of names with commas unless they
are surrounded by double quotes.
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