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Public Health 208 B (Yen)

Professional Skills

Phrase Searching

 

" "

To search for specific phrases, enclose them in quotation marks. The database will search for those words together in that order.

Examples:

primary care

major depression

Truncation

 

TRUNCATION

Truncate a word in order to search for different forms of the same word. Many databases use the asterisk * as the truncation symbol.

Examples:

Add the truncation symbol to the word screen* to search for screen, screens, screening, etc.

You do have to be careful with truncation. If you add the truncation symbol to the word minor*, the database will search for minor, minors, minority, minorities, etc.

AND & OR

 

AND & OR

Join together search terms in a logical manner.

AND - narrows searches, used to join dissimilar terms
OR - broadens searches, used to join similar terms

Examples:

#1
"major depression" AND "primary care"

#2
screen* OR feedback

#3
“major depression” AND “primary care” AND (screen* OR feedback)