6.2 Keyword Searching
Laura Haygood
Learning Objectives
At the end of this section, the learner will:
- Use one commonly used database to search nursing literature
- Utilize search tips such as truncation, field searching, boolean operators, and filters to create a relevant search
What is Keyword searching?
Keyword searching is fairly straightforward, you search for the key terms for your topic. You probably search databases in this way already. However, there are some strategies that can enhance a keyword search, which are covered in this section.
When keyword searching, you should assess your search topic and select what you view as the key words in that topic.
Keywords
Truncation
When searching a database, it is important to keep in mind that the database will interpret your search literally. What you type is what you get. Fortunately, there is a way around this: truncation. Truncation is a search method that allows you to search for the stem of a word, followed by an asterisk, allowing for variations to the ending.
For example, you may want information about education, but don’t want to exclude words such as educate, educator, educating, etc. By shortening the word to the stem, educat, and adding an asterisk, the database will retrieve all instances of words beginning with “educat.”
Truncation
Field-specific searches
One way to reduce the number of results in your search is to search specific fields. When you don’t select a field for your search, the database will search all fields. This may return results where your term is mentioned, but is not a major theme of the article.
Searching specific fields can bring more relevant results. For example, searching the title field will only yield results where your term occurs in the title. When attempting to narrow results, consider searching the title and abstract fields.
Additionally, a field-specific search is useful when you know the author’s name, as you can then search in the author field. Alternatively, if you know what journal (publication) you would like to search, you can use the publication name field.
Useful Fields
- Title
- Author
- Abstract
- Publication Name
Boolean Operators
Boolean operators are words that indicate the relationship between search terms. These terms are AND, OR, and NOT. You may have noticed these terms in most databases, often in a drop-down menu next to the search box.
AND can be used to narrow the number of results. AND forces the database to only retrieve results that list both terms.
cat AND dog
OR can be used to broaden the number of results that you retrieve. This is useful for synonyms, or words that mean the same thing. In this example, you could search for cat OR feline. You can also use OR when searching for similar terms. For example, you may need information about household pets, namely dogs or cats. Using OR will retrieve articles that mention either of the terms.
cat OR feline
cat OR dog
NOT is used to exclude a term. The order of your terms is importan