General search in SciSearch Plus
Boolean Searching and Truncation

SciSearch at LANL: http://search.lanl.gov/

Boolean searching

If you enter a phrase, SciSearch finds exactly that phrase, plus singular and plural forms of words.

hiv infection finds HIV infection or HIV infections but not HIV associated infections.

Words can be combined with AND, OR, NOT, or NEAR, and with parentheses.
Enclose operators in angle brackets: < >

hiv <and> lymphoma

AND requires that both terms be present.

genes <and> regulation

OR finds records containing either term.

chromium <or> lead

NOT excludes records containing a term:

fracture <not> medicine

NEAR finds words in order with the specified number of intervening words.

genes <near/5> regulation (finds regulation within five words of genes)

ORDER is used with NEAR to ensure that the two terms are in the specified order.

pregnancy <order><near2> diabetes (finds pregnancy followed by diabetes with up to two inervening words)

Use parentheses to be sure that operations are performed in the correct order.

Toxicity <and> (chromium <or> lead)

Truncation in SciSearch

Words are automatically "stemmed" to find singular, plural, and adjective forms of word.

If you enter TELOMERE, SciSearch finds TELOMERE or TELOMERES (but it does not find TELOMERASE).

Put your search term in double quotation marks to search exactly that term.
"PROTEIN" finds only PROTEIN. It does not find PROTEINS, PROTEINASE, etc.

Use an asterisk to represent an unlimited number of characters.

For example, TELOMER* finds TELOMERE, TELOMERES, or TELOMERASE.
Do not use an asterisk when searching authors.

Use a question mark for exactly one character.

INSECT? finds INSECTA or INSECTS but it doesn't find INSECT.

A minimum of two characters must be used before an * or ?

General search in SciSearch Plus Boolean Searching and Truncation

Boolean searching

Truncation in SciSearch

Related Topics

General search in SciSearch Plus
Boolean Searching and Truncation