Proquest - search tips
(Agricultural & Environmental Science Database, Oceanic Abstracts, Sociological Abstracts etc.)
Boolean operators
OR (broaden your search, more search results)
swine OR pig retrieves references with either the word swine or the word pig, or both words.
AND (narrow your search, fewer search results)
Searching for: salmonella and swine retrieves references containing both the word salmonella and the word swine
NOT (narrow your search by excluding terms, fewer search results)
pig NOT “guinea pig” retrieves references only with pig but the word “guinea pig” is excluded from the result
Proximity Operators
NEAR/n (Retrieves references that contain two search terms, in any order, within a specified number of words apart)
salmonella NEAR/2 swine retrieves references containing salmonella within 2 words of swine (in any order).
salmonella NEAR/3 swine retrieves references containing salmonella within 3 words of cattle (in any order).
PRE/n (retrieves references that contain one search term that appears within a specified number of words before a second term)
Food PRE/3 safety retrieves references contatining food within 3 words of safety (in exact order)
Other expressions
Parentheses ( ) The expression inside the parentheses is executed first.
salmonella AND (cattle OR cows)
Phrases ” ”
Searching for: “food safety” retrieves references containing the words food and safety next to each other (as a phrase).
Truncation/Wildcards
* replaces 0-many characters: pig* retrieves references containing the word pig, pigs, piggery, piggeries, piglet, piglets, pigeon, pigeons etc.
* retrieves variations of search terms: Colo*r retrieves color OR colour
? replaces 0-1 character or any single character
Pig? retrieves pig OR pigs
Pig??? Retrieves pig, pigs, piglet
Search limits
Go to Advanced search to make limitations before executing a search
- Use the dropdown list to limit your search to a certain field e.g. document title
- Limit to one or more source types, documents types or languages