Tips for Searching by Text

Tips for Searching by Text

The following table presents a number of tips for specifying text search criterion expressions. Please note that you may enter your search criterion expressions in either uppercase or lowercase letters. References to the specified text in Trends articles will be found regardless of their case.

To find reports that contain…	… enter the following as the search criterion expression:	Example search criterion expression:	Search via example expression finds reports that contain…
a specific word	the word	polysomnography	the word “polysomnography”
a word that starts with a specific segment	the segment followed by an asterisk	transplant*	any word starting with “transplant” (e.g., “transplant”, “transplants”, “transplantation”)
a specific phrase	the phrase	Pap smear	the term “Pap smear”
a number of specific words in any order	the words separated by the Boolean operator “AND”	prostate and cancer	both words “prostate” and “cancer” in any order
at least one of a number of alternative words	the words separated by the Boolean operator “OR”	cancer or carcinoma or sarcoma or malignan*	one or more of the following words: “cancer”, “carcinoma”, “sarcoma”, any word that starts with “malignan”
a specific word in the absence of another word	the specific word followed by the Boolean operators “AND NOT” and the word that should not be present	coronary and not angioplasty	the word “coronary” and not the word “angioplasty”
a combination of a specific word and at least one of a number of other words	the specific required word followed by the Boolean operator “AND” and a parentheses-enclosed expression for the “other” words	breast and (cancer or carcinoma)	the word “breast” and either of the words “cancer” or “carcinoma”
at least one of a number of alternative words in combination with at least one of a number of other alternative words	two parentheses-enclosed expressions for the alternative word lists separated by the Boolean operator “AND”	(hepatic or liver) and (cancer or carcinoma)	either of the words “hepatic” or “liver” in addition to either of the words “cancer” or “carcinoma”
two specific words in proximity to each other	the words separated by the proximity operator “NEAR”	fibroblast near diabetic	both words "fibroblast" and "diabetic" in any order, however the nearer the words are to each other, the higher the report titles appear in the generated topic list

Please note that when a search criterion expression includes both Boolean operators “AND” and “OR”, parentheses must be used to establish the order in which the expression components are evaluated. Parentheses must also be used when the expression includes the Boolean operator “NOT” followed by a phrase containing “AND” or “OR”. Expression segments in parentheses are evaluated before the rest of the search criterion expression. Omitting the parentheses will likely result in the omission of desired reports from the search results.

Additional Tips for Searching by Text
Please be aware of the following search features:

You cannot search for the words “AND”,“OR”, and “NOT” because these words are seen as Boolean operators.
You cannot search for the word “NEAR” because this word is seen as a proximity operator.

You cannot search for prepositions, articles, single digits, or other words on the following “noise word” list, because such words are ignored.

about
after
all
also
an
and
another
any
are
as
at
be
because
been
before
being
between
both
but

by
came
can
come
could
did
do
each
or
from
get
got
had
has
he
have
her
here
him

himself
his
how
if
in
into
is
it
like
make
many
me
might
more
most
much
must
my
never

now
of
on
only
or
other
our
out
over
said
same
see
should
since
some
still
such
take
than

that
the
their
them
then
there
these
they
this
those
through
to
too
under
up
very
was
way
we

well
were
what
where
which
while
who
with
would
you
your
a b c d e f
g h i j k l
m n o p q
r s t u v w
x y z
$
1 2 3 4 5
6 7 8 9 0

Thus the following expressions are evaluated identically:

treatment of breast cancer
treatment breast cancer

When "noise words" are included in search phrases, they act as placeholders for any ignored word(s).
For example, the expression “treatment of breast cancer” would match text strings “treatment for breast cancer” and “treatment and breast cancer”.

Punctuation marks such as the period (.), colon (:), semicolon (;), and comma (,) are treated as word breaks and are otherwise ignored during a search.
To search for a word or phrase that includes a special character such as an ampersand (&), pound sign (#), dollar sign ($) or parentheses (), you must enclose the word or phrase in quotation marks.
To search for a word or phrase that contains quotation marks, you must double the quotation marks where they appear in the word or phrase, then enclose the word or phrase in quotation marks. For example, “””bridge”” technology” will match the following phrase: “bridge” technology.

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