3: How do I search for variations on a phrase, like alternate spellings or the words within a specific proximity of each other?
Proximity Search for Different Term Order and Distance
In Module 2, we discussed using proximity searching with a distance of zero (0) words between individual terms to look for phrases. This section will review how to use a proximity search to find words in a phrase, even when those words are in a different order, or have some other words between them.
As a refresher: a proximity search should be formatted like this:
N stands for the maximum number of words appearing between search terms. You can search within these search fields (click on a field tag to view its scope in the PubMed Help Guide):
Reminder
Enclosing a phrase in double quotes will bypass Automatic Term Mapping (ATM).
Therefore, the search "rationing healthcare"[tiab:~2] will retrieve citations with the terms rationing and healthcare with up to two words between them in the title or abstract of a citation, like:
- "rationing in healthcare"
- "rationing universal healthcare"
- "rationing of healthcare"
You may need to experiment with different numbers of words between terms ("N") to find the most relevant results.
Key Takeaway
Use a proximity search ("search terms"[tiab:~N]) to search for words in a phrase, within a specific number of words of each other in any order, in the Title, Title/Abstract, or Affiliation fields.