This page provides information on how to perform a simple database search using Boolean operators, keywords and subject headings.
Note: A strong search will use Boolean operators, keywords and subject headings.
Keywords are words used to describe a topic. Keywords are natural-language vocabulary. That means they can come from any source and the database will look for these words anywhere within its records.
Subject headings are predefined words from a controlled vocabulary source such as a thesaurus. These words were assigned to articles by subject-specialists.MeSH (Medical Subject Headings) is the controlled vocabulary thesaurus produced by the National Library of Medicine. MeSH is widely used to index/classify articles in nursing research databases.
Important: Quotation marks around words will retrieve results with that exact phrase.
Boolean operators are simple words (AND, OR, NOT) used to interpret research requests and retrieve relevant information from a database. Boolean operators are generally not case-sensitive.
AND-Adding AND to a search narrows that search by telling the database to only retrieve results that contain all of the terms connected with the word "and."
OR-Adding OR to a search broadens that search by telling the database to include results that contain any of the terms connected with the word "or." The Boolean OR is useful in combining keywords that represent a single concept.
NOT-Adding NOT to a search limits that search by telling the database to exclude results that contain any of the terms mentioned after the word "not."
1. Go to the Medical Subject Headings thesaurus at http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/mesh. Enter "heart attack" in the search box. View the term that has been selected and assigned by the United States National Library of Medicine (NLM) to describe articles about heart attacks.
2. Open the CINAHL Complete database from the library's homepage. Perform a new search for each of the following search statements. Note how many results are generated after each search.