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Textwords:

In this approach, you are searching for the exact words that the author has used in the title and/or abstract. However that does NOT necessarily guarantee that the word or phrase is the topic of the article. When using textwords, you should think about synonyms to be sure that you are retrieving as much information as possible on the concept.

Textwords are useful in finding information on:

  • a concept for which there is no good MeSH heading
  • a concept that might be very new to the literature
  • a concept that has a very specific name, such as the GUSTO Trials.

Textword qualifiers: The textword qualifier tells Ovid that you are looking for a textword and therefore bypasses the mapping system.

  • textword.tw. will look for the word in the title or abstract
  • textword.mp. will look for the word in the title, abstract, registry number field and as a MeSH term but only if there is an exact match.
Truncating textwords: Textwords can be truncated to pick up various forms of a word. For example, if you are looking for references that use the word empirical, you might also want to consider looking for the word empiric.
  • empiric$.tw. will retrieve all forms of the word in the title and abstract
  • empiric$.mp. will retrieve all forms of the word in the title, abstract, registry number field and as a MeSH term, but only if the term begins with the word root.

Exercise:

  1. View the sample screen

  2. Type in "prevent$.tw. or prophyla$.tw." in the box labeled  "Enter Keyword or phrase"

  3. Click on the Perform Search button

Questions?
Call the Library at 215.871.6470 or email library@pcom.edu