EBSCOhost databases

Click Recent activity in the left-hand menu to view the searches you have done so far, the terms and settings that were used, and the number of results.

You can use Recent activity to:

• combine your search lines to build up a search strategy.
• edit your search strategy.
• get more information about your searches.

For complex searches, you may need to combine a number of search steps together. For example, if you are aiming to conduct an inclusive search, it is a good idea to combine a search for a thesaurus term (or subject heading) and a search for free text keywords for each of your target concepts. For example, ((MH "Anesthesia+") OR (anaesthesia or anesthesia)).

You can combine previous searches using the Recent activity area, accessed from the left-hand menu.

Use the tickboxes to the left of each search to select which ones you want to combine and then choose one of the combination buttons. You can choose to combine either using AND or using OR. The combination command will then appear in the search box at the top of the screen, for example S2 AND S3, and you can click the Search icon to run the search.

Sometimes you may wish to Edit a search, for example if you need to:

• amend your search terms, for example to add an additional term, delete a term, add a truncation symbol, etc.
• change your search options, for example to include related terms, etc.
• apply Filters, or add extra filters, to your search.

Editing options in the new EBSCOhost interface are still in development. Currently, you need to access the Recent activity area to find the search and then click Edit details to capture the search details by clicking Copy to clipboard. Paste the details into the search box and then you can add, remove or edit terms, and select new settings and filters, before clicking Search to re-run the amended search.

You can also remove an individual search from Recent activity by using the More [...] icon and selecting Delete.

View details about your search

• The Recent activity area shows each search you have done so far along with the syntax used for the search, the search options that were used and the number of results retrieved by the search. Click the bold search text to see the results retrieved by that particular search again. 
  
• Click the More [...] icon and choose Edit details to view information about which database was used for the search.

Interpreting the search syntax

• Thesaurus terms are prefixed with DE, for example, DE "Abstract Reasoning" or, for those databases that use Subject headings instead (e.g. CINAHL Plus), these are prefixed with MH, for example, (MH "Anesthesia").
• Explode: if you chose to explode a thesaurus term, all of the narrower terms will be listed in the search line. For example, if you have exploded the ERIC thesaurus term Cognitive Ability, the search line will be DE "Cognitive Ability" OR DE "Theory of Mind" OR DE "Thinking Skills". In CINAHL Plus, an exploded subject heading will be followed by a plus symbol, for example, (MH "Anesthesia+").
• Major Concept: if you selected Major Concept, the subject heading will be prefixed with MM, for example, (MM "Anesthesia").
• Subheadings: if you selected a subheading, the subject heading will be followed by a forward slash and the acronym for your selected subheading, for example, (MH "Anesthesia/AE"), where AE represents the subheading Adverse Effects.
• Filters: if you applied any filters, these will be shown as a blue tag alongside other search options.
• Combined searches: if you combined searches, only the search line numbers are shown in Recent activity, for example, S1 OR S2.

Understanding the Search Options

• The search options that were applied to each search are shown as blue tags in the Recent activity area.

• The defaults are Apply equivalent subjects (under Expanders) and Proximity (under Search modes):

  • Proximity means that your target terms were searched close to one another, unless you added search operators, such as AND and OR, or an exact phrase search.

  • Apply equivalent subjects means that mapped vocabulary terms were included in your search. These are synonyms or variants of your search terms, such as singular and plural forms of words.

• Click the Search options tab under the search boxes to view and change the options. Click the link to Learn more at EBSCO Connect for more details of how the various options work.

The search operators AND and OR are used in searching to combine search terms together.

AND retrieves articles which contain all of your concepts. For example, if you are interested in the use of cognitive behaviour therapy for gambling disorders, you would search for cognitive behaviour therapy AND gambling.

OR retrieves records which contain any of your concepts. For example, you might search for cognitive behaviour therapy OR CBT to retrieve all articles on the topic.

This video from EBSCO introduces how to combine searches together (3 min 31 secs).