Vendor | EBSCO | ProQuest | Elsevier1 | Elsevier1 | ITHAKA | Gale | LexisNexis | Sage |
Databases | Business Source Ultimate, etc. | ABI/INFORM Collection, etc. | Scopus | ScienceDirect | JSTOR2 | Gale Business: Insights | Nexis Uni | Sage Journals |
and |
AND
|
AND
|
AND
|
AND
|
AND
|
AND
|
AND
|
AND
|
or |
OR
|
OR
|
OR
|
OR
|
OR
|
OR
|
OR
|
OR
|
not |
NOT
|
NOT
|
AND NOT3
|
NOT
|
NOT
|
NOT
|
AND NOT
|
NOT
|
phrase |
"..."
|
"..."
|
"..."
|
"..."
|
"..."
|
"..."
|
"..."
|
"..."
|
truncation any # of letters |
*
|
*4
|
*
|
not supported
|
*
|
*
|
*
|
*5
|
wildcard |
# (0 or 1 letter) ? (1 letter) |
? (0 or 1 letter) | ? (1 letter) | not supported | ? (1 letter) |
! (0 or 1 letter) ? (1 letter) |
? (1 letter) | ? (1 letter)5 |
proximity within # words of each other, in any order |
n# (e.g., debt* n5 forgiv*) |
n/# (e.g., debt* n/5 forgiv*) |
w/#6 (e.g., debt* w/5 forgiv*) |
not supported |
~#7 (e.g., debt* forgiv* ~5) |
n#8 (e.g., debt* n5 forgiv*) |
near/# (e.g., debt near/5 forgiv*) |
"..." ~#>5 (e.g., "debt forgiveness" ~5) |
proximity within # words of each other, in order given |
w# (e.g., chief w5 officer*) |
p/# (e.g., chief p/5 officer*) |
pre/#6 (e.g., chief pre/5 oficer*) |
not supported | not supported |
w#8 (e.g., chief w5 officer*) |
onear/# (e.g., chief onear/5 officer*) |
not supported |
1 As of July 2018, Elsevier has used different interfaces for Scopus and ScienceDirect
2 JSTOR has a 200-character limit (including spaces) for search statements
3 AND NOT must always be used at the end of a search statement in Scopus
4 * replaces a maximum of 5 letters in ProQuest databases
5 Sage automatically searches for plurals and other variations of search terms
6 Scopus doesn’t allow proximity operators to be used in search statements that contain AND or AND NOT; they can only be used in search statements containing OR
7 JSTOR only allows proximity operators to be used between single words; they can’t be used between one or more phrases enclosed by quotation marks
8 Gale databases do not allow proximity operators to be used with nested expressions (i.e., in search statements that contain terms enclosed in parentheses)
Refer to a database's Help or Search Tips page for additional information about how to conduct an effective search in the database.
See this FAQ for instructions for removing duplicates from EBSCO resources such as Business Source Ultimate and from ProQuest resources such as ABI/INFORM Collection and Dissertations and Theses Global.