| 1 |
For a known article, type author name and title in the main search box - or copy/paste from a citation. |
Example : block bioenergetics of captive yellowfin tuna |
| 2 |
Start with keywords in the "All fields" search; add more keywords to refine. |
In articles+, adding more keywords to your search is often more effective than using facets. |
| 3 |
Enter your search in lower case or mixed case, never in ALL CAPS |
Some upper-case words in your search may be interpreted as Boolean operators or field codes and will cause the search to fail. |
| 4 |
For authors with common names, searching last name, first name brings the most relevant results to the top. |
Example : cornell, eric rather than eric cornell |
| 5 |
Combine specific field searches using field codes: AU = Author; TI = Title; SU = Subject; SO = Journal/Source |
Example : AU block, barbara SO science
Also available : AB = Abstract; IS = ISSN; IB = ISBN
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| 6 |
Stopwords are disregarded, even in quotes. |
Searching for a title that contains only stopwords ("to be or not to be") is not possible. Try another approach: by author, subject, or by going directly to a topic-specific database. |
| 7 |
Not every source provides values for every facet; Geography in particular. |
Selecting facets (e.g., “Mexico” in the “Geography” facet) can exclude relevant items from your results simply because the items are from a source that doesn't provide that metadata. |
| 8 |
Result counts are approximate; exact duplicates are removed from search results. |
A facet or result count may indicate there are more articles on a topic than the final result list actually delivers after de-duplication. |
| 9 |
Boolean operators AND, OR, and NOT (upper-case) can be combined with parentheses. |
Example : tuna (yellowfin OR bluefin) |
| 10 |
Search for non-English titles in quotation marks. |
This helps ensure that non-English words like "su" and "de" are not interpreted as search codes. |
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11
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Use wildcards to search for spelling or word variations
- * for multiple letters
- # for 0 or 1 letter (useful for British/American spellings)
- ? for 1 letter
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Example : comput* (finds computer, computing, computation)
Example : colo#r (finds color, colour)
Example : ne?t (finds next, nest, neat... but not net) |
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12
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Remove "et al" and year+vol+issue+pages from citation searches.
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Copy/pasted citation searches are very effective, but some details can make them fail. Most commonly:
- "et al" for an author list
- number/issue details for the journal.
Example :
Monllor Hurtado, Alberto, et al. "Shift in tuna catches due to ocean warming." fails
Monllor Hurtado, Alberto "Shift in tuna catches due to ocean warming." is successful
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