ProQuest Publicly Available Content Database: Advanced Search
The advanced search function is very powerful. You can use it to create structured queries, where you apply limiters before searching instead of after. Like the search results page, it can look a bit complicated. Let's break it down.
- Advanced Search Options Menu. These are
- Command Line Search. Use this to build a customised search using a combination of search terms Boolean Operators and specific searchable fields
- Recent Searches - access your recent searches and chooses to re-run them
- Field Codes. The item records in Publicly Available Content Database are very well organised, each unique bit of information in a record is organised into fields (such as title, author, abstract etc). This is a list of field codes that you can you use to identify the different fields in records
- Search Tips - opens a pop-up box with some more information about how to search efficiently and effectively
- The search box where you enter your search terms
- Field code chooser - to choose the field in which your search time should appear (Note that Anywhere is the default option)
- Boolean Operator selection - choose AND or OR or NOT to refine your search (there's more about Boolean operators here)
- Add a Row - and a new search term and the field in which it should appear
- Limit to full-text and/or peer reviewed material
- Limit by publication date
- Choose source type
- Choose document type
- Choose language
- Choose Creative Commons Licence
There are also Result page options - below the search limiters:
- Sort results
- Relevance
- Oldest items first
- Most recent items first
- Items per page - choose to display 10, 20, 50 or 100 items per page
- Exclude duplicate results
- Include search term spelling variants (e.g., colour and color)
- Include search terms form variants (e.g., comparatives (smaller, bigger), superlatives (smallest, biggest), and plurals (tree, trees).
- Show variants on Results page - When you select this option, only the search terms with expansions are highlighted in the Results-page search box; additional terms included in your search are displayed in a panel beneath the search box.
