If you’ve ever searched a disease name and felt like the results were either too broad, too narrow, or just not exactly what you were looking for, you’re not alone. The resources below are designed to provide a few tips that can help take your search from disorganized to laser-focused.
Our scenario:
I'm looking for articles on therapies for Motor Neuron Disease, but I'm concerned that I might be missing key results. How can I make sure my search is really targeted?
Three small search upgrades that make a big difference
First, we’ll start with a simple disease search and then make it smarter with a few small upgrades, so you capture more of what matters. This covers:
- How to search for phrases, but still allow for variations
- Which tools to select for finding variations in word endings or spellings, depending on your needs
Download the instructions for later use
Organize your ideas and be more intentional with your search
- one for reducing noise in your search,
- another that helps you combine ideas together,
- and third, how to use synonyms to make sure you’re not missing any key results.
Explore all available search tools
If you need to review all the tools covered in these two videos, or if you want to explore other available search tools, check out this helpful article.
Let experts help you choose your search terms- using a thesaurus
In the first two videos in this series, we focused on keyword searching — how to control word order, variants, and where your terms appear so you can better shape your results.
In this final video, we’re going to take the pressure off keyword guessing.
Instead of trying to anticipate every word an author might use to describe a disease or condition, we’ll look at how experts have already done that work for you — by applying standardized terminology to the literature.
We’ll continue using the same example, motor neuron disease.
Why use a thesaurus?
Up to this point, your searches have depended on choosing the right words. That can work — but it also means you’re constantly guessing how different authors might describe the same idea.
A thesaurus reduces that guesswork by providing:
Instead of searching for words, a thesaurus lets you search using controlled vocabulary — standardized terms that are assigned to articles by subject experts. These experts review the literature and apply a consistent term, even when authors use different language in their titles and abstracts.
For example:
heart attack vs myocardial infarction
motor neuron disease vs motor neurone disease
You can think of a thesaurus like a hashtag system, but with two important differences.
As mentioned above, thesaurus terms aren’t created by individual users. They’re defined and applied by experts who understand the field.
Second, thesaurus terms are structured. They connect broader and narrower concepts, so related ideas are organized together instead of scattered across different keywords.
For example:
>Neurodegenerative diseases
>>Motor neuron diseases
>>>Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis
In ProQuest One Health & Nursing, thesauri help bring consistency to searching across a large and diverse set of databases. They allow you to focus on what an article is about, rather than worrying about whether you chose the “right” keyword. Next, we’ll see how this works by using the two thesauri available in ProQuest One Health & Nursing.
What it looks like in practice
Learn how to:
- Use the MeSH thesaurus for Medline content
- Use the ProQuest thesaurus for other databases withing ProQuest One Health & Nursing
- Combine those searches together for comprehensiveness