Ovid basics: combining and displaying results
2004 version 2
24 May 2004
Combining search sets
Now you want to see if the article by Ponsonby is contained at the point at which all four search results (sets) intersect. For this we want to use the Boolean operator AND.
1. Select from the Main Search page icons;
2. Select (click) the set numbers of the search results that you wish to combine;
3. Combine selections using the connector AND;
4. Use
Figure 12: Combining four terms with 'and'
Figure 13: Search history resulting from a combination of terms
The search history for set 5 shows the intersection (and) of sets 1, 2, 3, and 4. This results in 1 hit - so it's quite likely we've found the article we want.
The other combination option is or - this is used to find the union of two or more search sets. It can be remembered as "or is more". In set 1 of the figure above you can see that the system has included an or operator to look for the possible authors named Anne Ponsonby.
More on the use of Boolean operators is in the combining terms section.
Displaying the results
To show the author/title information for the first ten (or less) results from the search, simply scroll down to the bottom of the Main Search screen.
Figure 14: Results seen by scrolling down the Main Search page
You can see that we've found the Ponsonby article. You want to see the abstract of the article:
Click the word Abstract to the below right of the article summary information.
Figure 15: Displaying the abstract of an article
The system displays the abstract (summary) of the article, created by MEDLINE indexers. If you were to click Complete Reference then you will see the information in Figure 15 plus the subject headings assigned to the article, and other index entries such as language and publication type (eg review). If you click Ponsonby AL then you are taken to a list of all articles by all authors with the name AL Ponsonby - they may not necessarily be the same person.
If after reading the abstract you want to save it for future printing, saving, email or ordering then place a tick (click) in the check box to the top left of the record. The results handling section goes through these options.
Any questions? Please contact the MEDLINE Plus help desk:
Tel: 020 7383 6224 or 6737
email: info.medline@bma.org.uk
web: http://www.bma.org.uk/medline