The EBSCOhost and ProQuest databases have many advanced search features that are easy to use once you know them, can help you refine your results, and can save you time by helping you search more efficiently
| Operator/Feature | What it does | EBSCOhost Databases (Academic Search Complete) |
ProQuest |
|---|---|---|---|
| phrase parsing | Keeps words together in the order specified. | “South America” | "South America" South-America |
| truncation | Used to replace any single character, either inside or at the end of a word. Use multiple wildcards to replace a specific # of letters. |
*= any number of characters
|
* = up to five characters |
| wildcard | Looks for documents that contain all of your words or phrases. Use AND to narrow your search and get fewer results. Word order does not matter. | ? = replaces one character wom?n = women, woman |
? = one for each character: amazon?? = amazon, amazons, but NOT amazonian |
| Boolean operator: and |
Looks for documents that contain all of your words or phrases. Use AND to narrow your search and get fewer results. Word order does not matter. |
rainforest* and ecosystem*
|
rainforest* and ecosystem*
|
| Boolean operator: or | Looks for documents that contain any of your words or phrases. Use OR to broaden your search and get more results. Always use parenthesis around “or” phrases. | rainforest* and (South America* or Amazon* or Brazil*) | rainforest* and (South America* or Amazon* or Brazil*) |
| proximity indicator: Near | Look for documents that contain search terms in any order, within a specified number of words apart. Replace the second ‘n’ with any number. | Nn - example: N3 rainforest* N5 ecosystem* rainforest* N10 ecosystem* |
NEAR/n = NEAR/5 N/n = NEAR/5 rainforest* N/5 ecosystem* |
| proximity indicator: Pre | Look for documents that contain search terms within a specified number of words in the same order. Replace ‘n’ with a number. In the example, 5 means within 5 words. | Wn example: W5 rainforest* W5 ecosystem* |
pre/n example: PRE/5 P/n example: P/5 Rainforest* P/5 ecosystem* |
| field searching | Use the drop-down option by the search boxes to limit searching to a specific field. Title is the most useful field for focusing a search. |  |
 |
| noteworthy features | On the initial search screen, explore the “Search Options” section below the search boxes. “Apply equivalent subjects” and “Apply related words” are good for broadening a search. | On the advanced search screen, click thesaurus and follow the instructions. | |
| essential filters | Limit by date, source type, peer-reviewed, full text, document type, language and more. | Explore the filters on the left side bar of the search results page | Explore the filters on the left side bar of the search results page |