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."
|
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.
|
|