Advanced Search

Create a search that is as precise as you need it to be.

In the first row, enter one or more words in the box.
Following the box is a dropdown of search fields. Search fields are discrete bits of indexed information—such as Author, Document title, or Subject heading—about individual documents.
Select from the list, or accept the default Anywhere.
Click Search.
ProQuest will search for your word(s) in the selected search fields.

With Anywhere selected, ProQuest looks for your words (search terms) in all fields—including any available abstract or full text—of all documents in all selected databases.

Autocomplete -- search term suggestions as you enter your search

If enabled by your administrator, autocomplete provides suggestions from previously successful searches by ProQuest users. The list changes as you type, to match previous searches that start with what you have entered at any point. Click any term in the list to immediately search for that term.

You can click the Turn off auto-complete link to disable search term suggestions for your current ProQuest session.

Taking it further

Use operators to specify relationships between your search terms

The second row of the Advanced Search form begins with a dropdown menu of search operators. Insert operators between search terms to specify relationships that tell ProQuest how to interpret and run your search.

Operators in the list are:

AND — Find documents that contain all of your search terms in the specified (or any) search field. AND is the default selection, meaning that if you don’t change it, ProQuest will look for documents that contain all of your search terms.
OR — Find documents that contain any of your search terms in the specified (or any) search field.
NOT — Find documents that contain the first, but not the second search term in the specified (or any) search field.

See Search Tips for a complete list of operators that you can use in other ProQuest search methods, including Basic Search and Command Line Search.

The second row of the form contains built-in OR statements—two boxes for you to type in, with an OR in between them. The row begins with the operator dropdown list. In the second row, the selection you make from the list will establish a relationship between the word you entered in the first row, and any word that you enter in the box or boxes in the second row. For example, you might enter environment in the box in the first row, select Subject heading (all) from the search field dropdown, accept the default AND operator at the beginning of the second row, enter oil in the first box in the second row, petroleum in the second box, and select Document text from the search field dropdown at the end of the second row.

Use the Add a row link to do just that, add a row to the default set of two rows. Use the Remove a row link to remove rows you’ve added beyond the default two.

Find out what databases you’re searching

Your institution's ProQuest subscription can include many databases, covering a wide range of subject areas. When multiple databases are selected, the number of databases you are currently searching is displayed at the top of the ProQuest window, like this:

Databases (117)

Click the link to view the current list and select or deselect databases.

Tip: You can improve the relevancy of your search results by choosing a particular database or database(s) to search on.

Limit your search

Some or all of the options described below can be turned on or off—meaning they display or don’t display—by your librarian or ProQuest administrator. Some options also may not be applicable to all databases. Check with your librarian or administrator if you’re curious about one of these options, but don’t see it while using ProQuest.

Select the Full text checkbox to find only documents that provide the complete full text, versus just a citation or abstract.
Select the Scholarly journals checkbox to find only documents from academically oriented journals.
Select the Peer reviewed checkbox to find only documents reviewed by subject matter experts.
Select the Latest update checkbox (if visible) to find only documents that were included in the last database update. Not all databases support this option.
Use the Date range dropdown to restrict your search to documents published within a particular timeframe.

Limit your search—more options

Additional limiters such as Source type or Document type are available to you, depending on the database or databases that you have chosen to search. Following are descriptions of three limiters available for many databases.

Source type - restrict your search to documents from one or more source types—such as magazines, newspapers, or trade journals. The list of source types will vary depending on the databases you are currently searching.
Document type - restrict your search to one or more document types—such as articles, audio/video clips, or poems. The list of document types will vary depending on the databases you are currently searching.
Language - restrict your search to documents published in one or more languages—such as Arabic, German, or Sanskrit. The list of languages will vary depending on the databases you are currently searching.

Duplicates — Duplicate documents arise when the same document is available from multiple selected databases. By default, ProQuest includes duplicate documents in your search results. To prevent duplicates from being included in your search results, select the Exclude duplicate documents checkbox. When you exclude duplicates, only the document deemed most relevant (based on its indexed metatdata) to your search will display in your results.

Include spelling and form variants — By default, ProQuest evaluates your terms to also look for US/UK spelling variants (color, colour), and English language form variants such as comparatives (smaller, bigger), superlatives (smallest, biggest), and plurals (tree, trees). This behavior is called ‘search expansion’ and helps you discover relevant results you otherwise would miss.

If you wish to search for the exact terms you typed, ensure that the Spelling variants and Form variants checkboxes are unselected. Alternatively, enclose a term or phrase in quotation marks to search for that exact term e.g. “time travel”.

Tip: You can use curly brackets with quotation marks if you wish to look for spelling and form variants of the words contained within a particular phrase. For example, in Early English Books Online, searching on “{God save the king}” will retrieve both the exact phrase God save the king and its Early English spelling and form variants, such as God saue the kyng.

Show variants on Results page — If this checkbox is selected before running a search, any search terms you entered with variants are highlighted in the Results-page search box; variant terms included in your search are listed in the panel below it.

Note: Databases that include a significant quantity of Early Modern English texts (e.g. Early English Books Online) use a specialist dictionary for spelling and form variants, developed by the CIC CLI Virtual Modernization project. By default, these databases evaluate the terms you enter to look for Early Modern English spelling and form variants — e.g. ghost retrieves the spelling variants goost, gost, ghoste, goost, gooste, goste, ghoast, ghaist.

The English language search variant options are not included for certain databases where the content is in languages other than English — e.g. Goethes Werke, Bibliografía de la Literatura Española. When you search within these databases, the search variant options do not appear and ProQuest looks for the exact terms that you entered.

Thesaurus subject terms

Most databases have an associated thesaurus (also called a controlled vocabulary of subject terms). Using these thesauri, editors assign one or more subject headings to each document in each database. With a thesaurus opened, you can browse subject terms, or select one or more to add to your search. Click the Thesaurus link above the search fields dropdown to display a list of available thesauri for your currently selected database.

More ways to do an Advanced Search

Use Command Line Search

Click Advanced Search in the main navigation to access both Advanced Search and Command Line Search. If you’re more comfortable building search statements at a command prompt, using search fields and operators, then Command Line searching might be for you.

Learn more

Check out these Search Tips to learn about using search fields, operators, wildcard characters, truncation characters, and more.

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