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."