Acquire - How to search - Phrase searching

Ask | Acquire/Find | Appraise | Apply | A self evaluation

When searching databases, to refine your search you can use double quote marks to surround the words you wish to join as a phrase to find literature links to exact phrases, for example, “insulin pump”.

• If you don’t use phrase searching, the database will look for any results with the word insulin, and any with the word pump.
• By enclosing a phrase in quotation marks this directs the search engine to search for all the words in the phrase in that exact order.
• Phrase searching makes your search more specific

Note: Some databases use curly brackets:  {   } instead of quotation marks. Always check the Help section of a particular database if you are unsure.

Watch a video

Have a look at this video (1:00) on using the phrase searching technique:

Tips and Tricks: Phrase Searching Links to an external site.

Video transcript (pdf - 30KB).