ProQuest Platform

 

Advanced search

The ProQuest platform's Advanced Search provides a wide variety of easily identified and expandable searchable fields and indexes designed to enable focused and complex searches.

In the upper bar of the main page one can find access to:

• Command Line;
• Dictionary of Synonyms (“Dicionário de sinónimos”);
• Field Codes, which are abbreviations for the search fields, and;
• Search Tips.

 

To add more search boxes, click Add a Search box.

Each search box is separated by a choice of Boolean operators, AND, OR or NOT. These may be used between terms within the search box or between search boxes.

The search can be limited by: Full Text and Peer Review.

Under Publication Date, dates can be preselected before running any search.

To the right of each search field, there is a menu with a drop-down list. By clicking this menu, several options for limiting a search may be found. These can include eliminating the search within the full text of documents or searching only within the abstract. Searchable index options may also be found, such as:

• Main Subject 
• Author or
• Title of the Publication.

When selected, a link to a searchable index is displayed, customised according to the selected item. When accessing the index, desired terms can be searched or browsed alphabetically. Subjects can then be selected, the desired Boolean operator used to add them to the search, and then click Add a Search Box.

Searches can also be limited by:

• Source Type;
• Document Type or
• Language of Content.

 

 

Example of advanced search

In the top menu of the ProQuest Platform use the terms in English.

Broaden your search for synonyms using the Boolean Operator - OR

• vehicle OR automobile
• cloning OR genetics OR reproduction

 

Search for compound terms and exact phrases by putting the terms in quotes (" ")

• "public health" -- "social media”

Capture variations of the term using the truncation character ( * )

• leader* captures leader, leaders, leadership

 

Use the proximity operators:

• PRE: finds terms with x number of words between them, in the order they are entered in the search:

(fiber PRE/2 glass)

• NEAR: finds terms with x number of words in between, regardless of the order in which they occur:

(television NEAR/n violence)

 

 

Select where to search

1 - Search on the main page

Specific fields can be used to select the term to be searched: Subject, Abstract, Author, etc.

 

2 – Use the Consult Subject (“Consultar Assunto”) option in the menu

The Look up Subjects link is displayed when items such as: Author, Subject, Publication Title, Company/Organisation, and others are selected.

Fields and options for refinement: vary according to the database.

Operator order of execution:

PRE > NEAR > AND > OR >NOT

 

3 – Search – Line of command

At the top of the main Advanced Search page, there is a link to access the Command Line search.

Command Line search allows the creation of more complex content-based searches.

Any search strategy can be manually performed and the details viewed in the window, or by use of the Operators and Search Fields features at the top of the page.

Operators include: Boolean operators, proximity operators, or Quantity comparison symbols.

There are several search field abbreviations available. After selecting a field or operator, clicking Add to Form will add what is displayed in each checkbox to the search field box.

After adding the items to the form, the search terms can be added. Quick access to a list of all Field Codes, Synonym Dictionary terms, or other indexed fields (including Command Line Help), are displayed in the upper right corner. After creating the search strategy, click Search.

 

4 – Searching the Synonym Dictionary

The Synonym Dictionary is an alphabetical listing of all descriptors (subjects) in the database.

 

Select Thesaurus