SEARCH

The simple search box allows for more complex concepts to be researched, as you will see below. Additional instructions on Advanced Search are found in other sections.

Combining Terms Using Boolean Operators (AND, OR, NOT)

• Combine terms using AND if you want all of the keywords to be appear in each result. You must capitalize AND for the combination to apply.
  1. Type the first topic you want to find in the search box, such as hypertension. 
  2. Add the second topic you want after AND, such as hypertension AND women.
  3. Click on the magnifying glass  or press Enter. You will notice that this provides a different ranking of results from searching for hypertension women since it looks for these terms separately throughout the item rather than prioritizing those that have hypertension and women close together.
• Combine terms using OR if you want at least one of the keywords to appear in each result. You must capitalize OR.
  1. Type the first topic you want to find in the search box, such as hypertension.
  2. Type the second topic or similar keyword you want to find in the search box after OR, such as hypertension OR high blood pressure. 
  3. Click on the magnifying glass  or press Enter. Your results will contain more items than searching for either of these keywords individually.
• Exclude terms using NOT if you do not want a keyword to appear in each result. You must capitalize NOT.
  1. Type the first topic you want to find in the search box, such as hypertension.
  2. Type the keyword you want to exclude in the search box after NOT, such as hypertension NOT diabetes. 
  3. Click on the magnifying glass  or press Enter. This will narrow your results and eliminate records that cover diabetes.

Phrase Searching

• Use quotation marks to create a string of keywords that you want to retrieve together as an exact phrase.
  1. Type the phrase you want to search together using " ", such as "coronary artery disease".
  2. Click on the magnifying glass  or press Enter. Your search will be limited to only those records that contain the keywords in the precise order typed, you will notice that "coronary artery disease" retrieves less results than coronary artery disease without the quotation marks, but the results are more relevant.

Wildcards

• To search multiple variations in spelling or root, use the wildcards ? and *.
  1. Type a single character wildcard with a question mark replacing the letter, such as wom?n to find woman or women.
  2. Type a multiple character wildcard with an asterisk replacing the letters, such as cardi* to find cardiovascular, cardiology, cardiac, etc.

Grouping

• When searching for multiple terms and combing operators, use parentheses to create groupings of ideas to clarify the order.
  1. Group your keywords together into concepts, such as hypertension OR high blood pressure, women OR men, diagnosis, NOT diabetes.
  2. Type your keywords into the search box using ( ) to group ideas together, such as (hypertension OR "high blood pressure") AND (wom?n OR m?n) AND (diagnos*) NOT (diabetes).
  3. Click on the magnifying glass  or press Enter. Your search will contain records that have either hypertension or high blood pressure along with women/woman or men/man and its diagnosis but not related to diabetes.

Searching for ISBNs and ISSNs

• Type the ISBN or ISSN directly into the search box with or without hyphens. Try without hyphens if you are not getting the expected results.

Advanced Search

1. To begin, click on the ADVANCED SEARCH on the right side of the search field.

2. Type the first topic you want to find in the SEARCH box, such as RNA and chooseTitle from Any Field.

3. Add your second topic, Vaccine and chooseTitle from Any Field.

4. Click on Add a New Line and insert the author name Vogel and choose Author/Creator from the Any Field.

5. Choose Articles from the Resource Type drop down menu.

6. Click on Search.

Full Text

1. To get full text access, you need to use the One Sign In function. In the upper right corner or in the yellow band beneath the search box, click Sign In. 

2. Enter your full WCM-Q email and password, for example, xyz1234@qatar-med.cornell.edu. 

3. Click on View Online to get the full text of the article.

4. For articles, check the coverage dates for online resources to make sure you are selecting the appropriate link. Then click the name of the database, such as New England Journal of Medicine Current, to open in a new tab.