Search Operators

Operator	Description	Example	Exceptions
AND	Finds records containing all terms separated by the operator Our product uses an implicit AND operator when you enter two or more adjacent terms in most fields.	Beverage AND bottle AND beer rainbow trout fish farm is equivalent to rainbow AND trout AND fish AND farm	Implied AND does not apply to Chinese-language search queries.
OR	Finds records containing any of the terms separated by the operator	Beverage OR bottle finds records containing beverage or bottle or both search terms
NOT	Excludes records containing certain words from your search	Beverage NOT bottle finds records containing beverage but excludes records containing bottle

Booleans in Address Field

When you search for organization names that include a Boolean operator (AND, NOT, NEAR, and SAME), always enclose the operator in quotation marks ( " " ). For example:

• "Near" East Univ
• "OR" Hlth Sci Univ

You can also enclose the entire query in quotation marks. For example:

• "Near East Univ"
• "OR Hlth Sci Univ"

Implicit

Web of Science search uses an implicit AND operator in most fields when you enter two or more adjacent terms. For example, typing rainbow trout fish farm in an All Fields search is equivalent to typing rainbow AND trout AND fish AND farm; both queries render the same number of results.

Implicit AND in Chinese and Korean-Language

By contrast, implied-AND logic does not apply to Chinese and Korean-language queries.

These are not equivalent searches:

• TITLE: (海洋 地震) returns records where 海洋 and 地震 are adjacent in a title.
• TITLE: (海洋 AND 地震) returns records where 海洋 and 地震 both appear in a title. The terms need not be adjacent.

These are not equivalent searches:

• TITLE: (말 폐렴) returns records where 말 and 폐렴 are adjacent in a title.
• TITLE: (말 AND 폐렴) returns records where 말 and 폐렴 both appear in a title. The terms need not be adjacent.

Note: For DOI, PMID and Accession number fields we use OR as an implicit operator. For example, typing 10.1007/s12038-018-9756-3 10.1016/j.mod.2006.03.001 is equivalent to type 10.1007/s12038-018-9756-3 OR 10.1016/j.mod.2006.03.001

Operator	Description	Example	Exceptions
NEAR/x	Use NEAR/x to find records where the terms joined by the operator are within a specified number of words of each other. Replace the x with a number to specify the maximum number of words that separate the terms. If you use NEAR without /x, the system will find records where the terms joined by NEAR are within 15 words of each other. For example, these searches are equivalent: salmon NEAR virus salmon NEAR/15 virus Always enclose NEAR in quotation marks ( " " ) when it appears in the title of a source item such as a journal, book, proceeding, or other type of work. Valid Search Example Atomistic simulations of a solid/liquid interface: a combined force field and first principles approach to the structure and dynamics of acetonitrile "near" an anatase If you leave out the quotation marks, the system returns an error: Search Error: Invalid use of NEAR operator.	Beverage NEAR/5 bottle finds records containing both beverage and bottle. The two words must be within five words of each other TS = (Germany NEAR/10 "monetary union") TS = (Germany NEAR/10 (monetary NEAR/0 union)) NEAR/0 means words joined by the operator should be adjacent.	You cannot use the AND operator in queries that include the NEAR operator. For example, the following query is not valid: TS = (Germany NEAR/10 (monetary AND union))
Same	In Address searches, use SAME to restrict your search to terms that appear in the same address within a Full Record	AD=(McGill Univ SAME Quebec SAME Canada) finds records in which McGill University appears in the Addresses field of a Full Record along with Quebec and Canada

If you use different operators in your search, the search is processed according to this order of precedence:

1. NEAR/x
2. SAME
3. NOT
4. AND
5. OR

Use parentheses to override operator precedence. For example:

• influenza OR flu AND avian finds records containing the word influenza. It also finds records containing both flu and avian.
• (influenza OR flu) AND avian finds records containing both influenza and avian or both flu and avian.
• copper OR lead AND algae finds all records in which both lead AND algae are present as well as all records in which the word copper is present.
• (copper OR lead) AND algae finds all records in which the word algae is present together with either copper or lead.

Use parentheses to override operator precedence. The expression inside the parentheses is executed first.

(cadmium AND gill*) NOT Pisces finds records containing both cadmium and gill (or gills), but excludes records containing the word Pisces.

(salmon OR pike) NEAR/10 virus find records containing salmon or pike within 10 words of virus.