Keyword searching: synonyms
2004 version 2
24 May 2004
Synonyms
If it is important for a search to be comprehensive you need to include concepts as keywords combined with exploded MeSH headings, eg breast cancers with the MeSH term Breast Neoplasms; or SIDS with cot death with the MeSH term Sudden Infant Death.
You also may need to allow for misclassification of articles. This is apparent where a US bias is obvious in the subject heading, for example physicians, family is the subject heading appropriate for general practitioners (the scope note indicates this), but some articles about general practitioners do not include the heading.
Synonyms need to be combined with or. In the example above, if you need to be comprehensive and include the US equivalent then search for physicians, family/ or family practice/ or general practi$.tw.
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