When you first enter PubMed, you can start entering search terms into the Basic Search box.
For more information and tips for building a search strategy, check out the information below.
The databases will often not understand your search if you enter it as a normal sentence, such as your full research or PICO question.
Instead, you want to use the search terms that you brainstormed to create a Search Strategy.
By using Boolean Operators and Parentheses, you can tell the databases precisely how you want your search terms to be searched.
The databases will often not understand your query if you enter it as a natural language sentence, such as your full research or PICO question. Instead, you want to use the search terms that you brainstormed to create an advanced search strategy. By using Boolean Operators, you can tell the databases precisely how you want your search terms to be searched.
AND
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OR
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NOT
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Lastly, when creating a more complicated or advanced search, you can use parentheses to group your keywords together and tell the database precisely how you want the terms searched. The database will perform the searches within parentheses before the searches outside of parentheses. This is similar to the way parentheses are used in math.
Use parentheses any time you have more than one keyword for a particular concept. In other words, when you are using the boolean operator OR, put parentheses around all of the OR'd terms.
For example: (dental anxiety OR dental fear OR dental phobia) AND (music therapy OR music)