Search Tips for Ovid databases (Agricola, Medline, Embase...)

Do not use Basic Search, which is too simple and not suitable for serious literature search in the databases. Instead, use the Advanced Ovid Search.

Operators in Advanced Ovid Search

• OR

Searching for: swine or pig will retrieve references to journal articles or books containing either the word swine or the word pig (or both words).

• AND

Searching for: salmonella and cattle will retrieve references containing both the word salmonella and the word cattle

•  NOT

Searching for: pig NOT guinea pig will retrieve references only with pig but the word guinea pig is excluded from the results.

Parentheses ( )

Searching for: salmonella and (swine or pig) will retrieve references containing the word salmonella and either the word swine or the word pig or both words.

ADJn (n is a number between 1 and 99)

Searching for: obesity adj2 sugar will retrieve references containing obesity within 2 words of sugar (in any order). Searching for: obesity adj3 sugar will retrieve references containing obesity within 3 words of sugar (in any order).

Phrases ""

Searching for: organic acids will retrieve references containing the words organic and acids next to each other (i.e. as a phrase).

 Truncation – wildcards

• ? = 0-1 character Searching for: flavo?r will retrieve references containing the word flavor or the word flavour Searching for: pig? will retrieve references containing the word pig or the word pigs.
  
  
•  * = 0-more characters Searching for: pig* will retrieve references containing the word pig, pigs, piggery, piggeries, piglet, piglets, pigeon or pigeons etc. Searching for: functional food* will retrieve functional food, functional foods, functional foodstuff, functional foodstuffs.

Search limits

Limit a search to title, heading words or to other search field

If the Title button is selected, searching for swine or pigs will only retrieve references containing the word swine or the word pigs in the title of the article.

Searching for: (swine or pigs).ti will retrieve the same references as if you selected the Title button

Searching for: (swine or pigs).ti,hw will retrieve references containing the word swine or the word pigs in the title (TI) and/or the heading words (HW) of the article.

If search number 2 was: swine or pigs, searching for: 2.ti will retrieve references containing the word swine or the word pigs in the title of the article.

If you click Search Fields more search will appear to search in e.g. publication type (pt), abstract (ab) etc..

Limits Limits apply to limit the search to e.g. specific languages or publication years.

Search Tools

Search Tools provides different lists of subject headings, thesaurus, and index. Use Search Tools to find search terms, synonyms, similar terms and related terms.

Change database

Click Change to choose other Ovid databases and click Run search to rerun the previous search in one or more databases at once.

Remove duplicates

When searching in multiple databases simultaneously, it is possible to remove duplicates by clicking Deduplicate. Unfortunately, not all duplicates will be removed.