Command Line Search

Command Line Search is designed to help you build a precise search using operators to combine different fields that target your search terms. ProQuest will only search the fields you specify. Alternatively, you can simply search on a word or phrase.

Operators, fields, and special characters
Adding thesaurus terms
Keep in mind

Command line searching is useful if you want to quickly combine fields within a search without filling in each of the fields individually, or when you need to find information in one field, but NOT in another.

To perform a command line search, you can prefix your term(s) with field name abbreviations and enter them directly into the search box. For example: AU(Miller) and PUB(physiol*).

Alternatively:

1. Click Add search fields.
2. Click the arrow next to the Search fields dropdown and choose a field code.
3. If you want to combine fields with Boolean operators, click the arrow next to the Operators list and choose the required operator.
4. Click Add to form.
5. Enter your search term(s) in the brackets for each field.

Running multiple searches at once

Command Line Search supports the concept of iterative searching. Iterative searching is simply the concept of running a search, refining that search, running a second search, and so on—possibly combining searches as you go. The goal is to narrow, or broaden your initial search to get the results you want.

To run multiple searches at once:

1. Enter a search in the box. If you’re entering a very long search, just keep typing; the search will wrap to a new line as necessary.
2. Press Enter or Shift+Enter to start a new line.
3. Enter a second search.
4. Repeat steps 1–3 until all of your searches are listed.
5. Click Search.

All of your searches will run, and:

• A results list for the last search you entered will display.
• A new list item corresponding to each of your searches is added sequentially to the Recent Searches page.

Operators, fields, and special characters

Search fields

Look up links

For some fields included in the Search fields drop-list, you can browse—using Look up links—a list of all available terms, and select one or more to add to your search.

Field codes

Field codes (sometimes called mnemonics), provide a shorthand alternative for search field names.

ProQuest will interpret both the field name and its corresponding code the same.

For example:
author(Smith)
is the same as:
AU(Smith)

Important to know: Some field codes only return results for some databases.

Operators

Special characters for special purposes

These characters can come in handy when you're looking for documents that contain words that can be spelled different ways, such as color or colour, or words that begin with the same character string, such as nursed or nursing.

Adding thesaurus terms

You can use the thesauri to find broader and/or narrower related terms to add to your search.

Note that the thesauri that you see on the Thesaurus List screen will depend on your subscription and on the database(s) you have selected; also, some thesauri only apply to particular databases.

Duplicates and Search Expansions

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 you entered.

Keep in mind

• Command line searches—including any operators or search field codes you include—are case-insensitive.  
• Your administrator can specify whether ProQuest should look for instances of your search terms everywhere including the full text, or everywhere except the full text. The default setting includes full text; if your administrator has changed this setting, the search page will display a message indicating this. Regardless of which option has been set, you can still use the full text checkbox on the search screen to retrieve documents with full text; the administrator setting just controls where ProQuest will look for your search terms.
• You can use wildcard characters and truncation characters in your search.
• You can use command line syntax in any search box in ProQuest that does not target a specific search field. For example:
  • The Basic Search box
  • The search box at the top of a Search Results page
  • The Advanced Search page, with the default Anywhere selected

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