Tip #9: Scopus - Loose vs. Exact Phrases

 To search for an EXACT phrase in Scopus, you'll need to modify your phrases from using "double quotation marks" to {curly brackets}. Scopus uses both "Loose" and "Exact" phrases:

"Exact
To find documents that contain an exact phrase, enclose the phrase in braces: {oyster toadfish}.

RESULT: This includes any stop words, spaces, and punctuation which you included in the braces. For example:

{heart-attack} and {heart attack} will return different results because the dash is included.

 

Wildcards are searched as actual characters, e.g. {health care?} returns results such as: Who pays for health care?

Loose

Double quotation marks are important when searching for a loose/approximate phrase.
Example:

Loose phrase: TITLE-ABS-KEY( "heart attack") searches for documents where heart attack appear together in the title, abstract, or keywords.

 

Not a loose phrase: TITLE-ABS-KEY( heart attack) searches for documents where heart and attack appear together or separately in the title, abstract, or keywords."

Try it!

TITLE({rounds} OR {rounding}) AND TITLE-ABS-KEY(parent OR parental OR parents OR mother OR mothers OR father OR fathers OR family OR families OR familial OR maternal OR paternal OR caregiver OR caregivers OR Guardian OR Guardians)

TITLE ("rounds" OR "rounding") AND TITLE-ABS-KEY (parent OR parental OR parents OR mother OR mothers OR father OR fathers OR family OR families OR familial OR maternal OR paternal OR caregiver OR caregivers OR guardian OR guardians)

( TITLE ( "rounds"  OR  "rounding" )  AND  TITLE-ABS-KEY ( parent  OR  parental  OR  parents  OR  mother  OR  mothers  OR  father  OR  fathers  OR  family  OR  families  OR  familial  OR  maternal  OR  paternal  OR  caregiver  OR  caregivers  OR  guardian  OR  guardians ) )  AND NOT  ( TITLE ( {rounds}  OR  {rounding} )  AND  TITLE-ABS-KEY ( parent  OR  parental  OR  parents  OR  mother  OR  mothers  OR  father  OR  fathers  OR  family  OR  families  OR  familial  OR  maternal  OR  paternal  OR  caregiver  OR  caregivers  OR  guardian  OR  guardians ) ) 

This is an example one of the 708 articles that are not relevant to my topic of parents and patients involved in rounding. The exact phrase dramatically improved the precision of my search!