The search systems of scientific databases differ from Google. Google can search for inflected forms, derivatives, and even synonyms.
Scientific databases typically only search for the exact terms entered into the search box. Therefore, it is often necessary to use a truncation symbol.
Quotation marks are used with multi-word search terms, including on Google.
Databases do not indicate spelling errors, so it is important to be meticulous with spelling.
Truncation mark is used to search for words that start with the letters preceding the mark.
Letters are removed from the end of the word and a truncation mark is added.
By truncating search terms you can include all the different forms of the word in your search, e.g. plurals and different cases.
The most common symbol for truncation is the asterisk, *
econom* > economy, economics, economically, econometrics...
intercultural* > intercultural, interculturality, interculturalism...
work* > work, workers, working, workplace...
Truncating a word can also produce unwanted search terms.
In such a situation, you can use the OR operator. Learn more about the OR-operator.
sing* > sing, singer, singing, single, singularity, Singapore
A database does not search for a search term as the latter part of a compound word. For example, the search term
game will not find the word videogame.
In such a situation, you can use the OR operator. Learn more about the OR-operator.
Quotation marks are used to search for words that appear consecutively in the exact order and spelling provided.
They are used when you want to search for
In many databases, you can also use truncation within quotation marks, e.g.
"comput* think*" > "computational thinking", "computers think", "...computing: Thinkers...".
In Oula-Finna, you cannot use truncation within quotation marks.
Quotation marks prevent the automatic search for different inflected forms, e.g., in Google Scholarissa, so search without quotation marks.
Avoid using long phrase searches; instead, use the AND-operator or a proximity operator.
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By truncating search terms you can include all the different forms of the word in your search, e.g. plurals and different cases. The most common symbol for truncation is the asterisk *. Usually the symbol is used at the end of the word, but in some databases you can also use it at the beginning or in the middle of the word. Nowadays many databases search for the different forms of the words automatically. A replacement character usually replaces 0-1 characters. By using a replacement character you can get all the different forms of the word in your search. The symbol for a replacement character varies between databases, so be sure to check the database guides for this.
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Using truncation in Scopus: product* searches e.g. products, production,
Using a replacement character in Scopus: organi?ation searches for organization and organisation |
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By using quotation marks (phrase search) you can search with the combination of two or more words. The words written inside the quotation marks will appear in that order in the search results. There are differences in phrase searches between databases, which you can check in the database quick guide. |
Phrase search with quotation marks: "plastic waste"
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When searching without quotation marks, the words are searched individually in the database. Therefore, the search words may occur far away from each other, so the search results may include unusable material. |
litter plastic
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Boolean operators OR, AND and NOT are usually used to combine search terms and strings. In many databases you can also use proximity operators. Search terms with their truncation symbols and the operators that combine them form a search string, and this is expressed differently depending on the database. In addition to the used operators, combining search terms and strings is affected by the search order and the use of brackets. It is wise to check the operators and their functions in the guides.
