Search tips

• Using only one term can bring back a large number of results, so think of additional terms to help qualify the search e.g. asthma and steroids.
• Phrase searching is achieved by placing the phrase within quotation marks.
• In addition to Boolean searching you can also use brackets to enhance the search e.g. ‘(measles OR mumps) and pregnancy’
• A search term can be stemmed by using the ‘*’ e.g. ‘cancer*’ will find cancer, cancerous etc.
• On the results page you can filter your results based on an evidence based medicine hierarchy e.g. clinical guidelines, systematic reviews. Use the ‘Filter by’ function on the right-hand side of the screen.

For our top ten search tips click here.

For more extensive search tips click here