1. Isolate keywords from your topic.
2. Narrow your search results to include all of your keywords using AND.
"United States" AND cultural competence AND health care
3. Expand your search using OR to find like terms.
"United States" AND "cultural competence" AND ("health care" OR healthcare)
Combining search terms with AND:
For Example
A search for "United States" yields 314,000 results results
A search for cultural competence yields 1,700 results
A search for cultural competence AND "United States" yields 429 results
Combining search terms with OR:
For Example
A search for "health care" yields 263,000 results
A search for healthcare yields 170,000 results
A search for "health care" OR healthcare yields 317,000 results
For Example
A search for caregiver yields 13,300 results
A search for caregiver NOT family yields 6,700 results
Use Quotation Marks to:
This shows the search engine that you want the terms to be found together. The search will look for exactly what you place in the quotation marks, so be sure there are no mistakes.
For Example
A search for United States yields over 500,000 results
A search for "United States" yields about 300,000 results
Use Truncation to:
Search engines match your exact terms to results; they will not automatically find an alternate version of it. Truncation tells the search to match the root of your term and gives it freedom to find whatever endings it can.
For Example
A search for cultural yields 36,000 results
A search for cultur* yields over 95,000 results
You can search Embase using both keywords and the system’s hierarchically-structured subject headings, called Emtree.
Keywords are terms you think might be relevant to your search, including synonyms. Use quotes around phrases, e.g., “restorative yoga”. The words must be in that order and spelled exactly the same. Use an * after the root of a word to retrieve variants, e.g., therap* to find therapy, therapies, therapeutics, therapeutic. Keyword searching is useful when a topic is very new or you are doing a preliminary search.
Emtree is the subject headings tool in Embase. A term is mapped to terms that are conceptually related, e.g., cancer, tumor, neoplasms. Using a controlled vocabulary means you don’t have to know or list all the synonyms.
Emtree is also a hierarchical vocabulary, which means you can use it to include more specific terms that are indented under the main term, or you can choose a specific term to narrow your search. Listed under the Emtree heading “nurse” are more than ten types of nurses!
