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How to search POPLINE using Boolean Operators

Use the symbols & / ! between words or phrases to represent Boolean AND, OR, NOT. Include a space before and after the symbol.

Words joined by & / ! are evaluated in left-to-right order: "red & white / blue" finds records that are red and white, or records that are blue. Use parentheses to control evaluation order: "red & (white / blue)" finds items that are red and white or red and blue.

POPLINE also supports truncation and proximity searches "preceeds" and "within".

AND

To narrow a search, use & (ampersand) between terms. Records that contain just one of the terms will be ignored.

Example: "adolescents & contraception" will find records in which both terms occur.

 

OR

To broaden a search, use / (forward slash) between terms to find records that contain either, or both, of the search terms.

Example: "Africa / Asia" will find records with either one of the terms.

 
NOT

To search for one term but not another, use ! (exclamation point) before a term to find all records without that word.

Example: "contraception ! men" will find records that contain the term "contraception" and not the term "men".

 
Truncation

Using the * (asterisk), as a wild card, allows you to retrieve different variations of the same term.

Example: Contracep* will return both contraception, contracepting, contraceptive, etc.

 
Preceeds

Use the operator p# to find all occurrences of two words where the first precedes the second by no more than # words.

Example: "community p2 distribution" will return "community distribution" as well as "community-based distribution".

 
Within

Use the operator w# to find all occurrences of two words where they are within # words of each other.

Example: "child w3 spacing" will find "child" within 3 words of "spacing", before or after.

You cannot specify more than two words in a proximity search. For example, you cannot search for "child w3 spaca* w2 breastfeeding." You also cannot use proximity operators with phrases, such as "child spacing w5 breastfeeding."

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