Search Tips

• Use "quotation marks" to search for exact phrases.
• 2 word queries (such as circus elephant) are searched as an exact phrase by default.
• 3 word queries (such as new york orchestra) are searched as words that need to appear in proximity to each other by default.
• Use special characters and operators (below) to focus your query.

Learn About

• Truncation and Wildcard Characters ?, *
• Operators AND, OR, NOT …
• Search Field Syntax AU(...) for author
• Stop Words the, an, of …
• Example Searches

Truncation and Wildcard Characters

	The symbol * is used as a right-handed truncation character only; it will find all forms of a word. For example, searching for econom* will find "economy", "economics", economical", etc.
	The symbol ? is used to replace any single character, either inside the word or the right end of the word. ? cannot be used to begin a word. For example, searching for "wom?n" will find "woman" and "women." Searching for "t?re" will find "tire", "tyre", "tore", etc.

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Operators

Boolean, proximity and adjacency operators are used to broaden and narrow your search.

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Search Field Syntax

• Abstract
• Advisor
• Alternate Language Title
• Author
• Citation and Abstract
• Committee Members
• Degree Awarded
• Department
• Document ID
• Document Language
• Document Title
• ISBN
• Publication Order Number (UMI Order Number)
• School Location
• School Name/Code
• Subject Name/Code
• Supplemental Files

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Abstract

Search article abstracts for your terms.

Valid Forms:
    ABS
    AB
    ABSTRACT

Examples:
    ABS(customer delight)
    ABS(ozone)

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Advisor

Lets you search for dissertations completed under the supervision of a specific academic advisor. If you're unsure of the spelling of a name, try using truncation. Advisor names are searchable in the following ways: advisor (first name), advisor (last name), or advisor (last name, first name)

Valid Forms:
    AD
    ADV
    ADVISER
    ADVISOR

Examples:
    ADV(Fogel, Aaron)
    ADV(Abhijit)

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Alternate Language Title

Use the Alternate Language Title search field to look for dissertations by their alternate language title. For example, you can search for documents originally published in Spanish by searching for an alternate title in English.

Valid Forms:
    ALTITLE

Examples:
    ALTITLE("The local area as a strategy for sustainable urban development")

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Author

Use to find documents written by a particular author.

Valid Forms:
    AUTHOR
    AU

Examples:
    AUTHOR(Gertrude Huntington)
    AU(Kinsley, Michael)

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Citation and Abstract

When you select Citations and abstracts from the drop-down menu, ProQuest searches the following fields:

• Author
• Personal Name
• Abstract
• Product Name
  
• Article Title
  
• Subject Terms
  
• Company Name
  
• Source (publication title)
  
• Geographical Name

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Committee Members

Lets you search for dissertations reviewed by specific committee members. If you're unsure of the spelling of a name, try using truncation. Committte member names are searchable in the following ways: CMT(first name), CMT(last name), or CMT(last name, first name)

Valid Forms:
    CMT

Examples:
    CMT(Frazier, Maria)
    CMT(Chang)

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Degree Awarded

Lets you search on a thesis for a particular degree, such as Ed. D.

Valid Forms:
    DG

Examples:
    DG(M.A.)

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Department

Use this field to search for dissertations granted by a specific department.

Valid Forms:
    DEP

Examples:
    DEP(School of Engineering)
    DEP(Computer Science)

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Document ID

Searches the unique database ID for articles and documents in ProQuest.

Valid Forms:
   ID

Examples:
   ID(356894)

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Document Language

Used to search Language index. This field contains the language in which the document was published originally. You can select languages from Language field specific index. 

Valid Forms:
    LA
    LN

Examples:
   LA(french)
   LN(french or english)

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Document Title

The title of a document, such as "Application of effective field theory to the study of hypernuclei." This search field locates the occurrence of search words in the title of the article.

Valid Forms:
    TITLE
    TI

Examples:
    TITLE(Future)
    TI(future AND career)
    TI("Application of effective field theory to the study of hypernuclei")

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ISBN

This search field looks for the ten-digit International Standard Book Number (ISBN), where available. Do not enter hyphens. Spaces are required.

Valid Forms:
    ISB
    ISBN
    BN
    SN

Examples:
    BN(1 55570 397 6)

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Publication Order Number (UMI Order Number)

Search for a specific dissertation by publication or order number. You can include or omit the dashes.

Valid Forms:
    DISPUB

Examples:
   DISPUB(9598765)
   DISPUB(98765)

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School Location

Lets you search for a school in a specific geographic location, such as state, province, or country. On the Advanced Search page, you can click the Browse locations link to select from a list of the available locations.

Valid Forms:
    SCHLOC

Examples:
    SCHLOC(Denmark)

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School Name/Code

Search for dissertations granted by a specific school. Enter the school name or four-digit school code. You can use this field to search for a list of all schools within a particular country by entering the country name.

You can click the Browse Schools link to select from a list of available schools.

Valid Forms:
    SC
    SCH
    SCHNAME

Examples:
    SCHNAME(University of Michigan)
    SCHNAME(sweden)
    SCHNAME(0300)

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Subject Name/Code

Use the Subject Name/Code search field to look for dissertations or theses about a specific subject.

You can enter a subject name, or the four number subject code associated with each subject name. You can also click the Browse subjects link to select subjects from a list of those available.

Subject terms in this field conform to the ProQuest/UMI controlled vocabulary.

Note: Subject searching is most effective when used with keyword, degree date, or other search limiters. Otherwise, the large size of the dissertation database may mean that your search takes several minutes to perform, and that your results set is unwieldy.

Valid Forms:
    SUB

Examples:
    SUB(Music)

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Supplemental Files

Search for dissertations containing supplemental files such as images, videos, documents or spreadsheets. Enter the supplemental file type.

You can click the Browse supplemental file types link to select from a list of available file types. Select All file types to limit your search to graduate works containing any type of supplemental file.

Valid Form:
   SFILE
   SMAT

Example:
   SFILE(video)
   SFILE(image)
   SMAT(image)

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Stop Words

ProQuest ignores the following frequently-used words. To use them as part of a search phrase, enclose them with quotation marks: e.g. "the sound and the fury".

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Example Searches

The examples below illustrate the kinds of searches you can build in Basic Search or Advanced Search using operators and fields.

Content varies between ProQuest databases; therefore, the number of documents found using the examples below would vary.

weather

Finds documents that contain the word weather.

educat*

Finds documents containing the words education, educator, educate, and educating. The "*" is the truncation symbol to find multiple forms of a word.

weather AND pacific ocean

Finds documents that contain the word weather and the phrase pacific ocean.

"Blair Witch Project"

Finds documents that contain the phrase Blair Witch Project.
Always enclose phrases longer than two words in quotation marks.

sub(mars) AND water AND life

Finds documents about Mars that mention water and life. The Subject Terms search field will help you find documents that are about a particular subject.
Keywords (such as water and life as in the example) focus your search more precisely.

author(William Cosby)

Finds documents written by William Cosby.

at(book review) AND name(Stephen King)

Finds book reviews of works by Stephen King. Use the document Type search field to find different kinds of documents, including biographies, interviews, and recipes.
Note that dtype is also a valid syntax form for document Type.

source(Fortune) AND company(Ford) AND PDN(>03/01/2001 AND <10/30/2001)

Finds documents from the magazine Fortune about the company Ford published between March 1, 2001 and October 30 2001. Use the Source search field to restrict your search to a specific newspaper or journal. Use the Company field to restrict to a specific company.

sc(harvard) and sub(business)

Finds dissertations from Harvard University, on the subject of business.

adviser(anspach) and sc(michigan)

Finds dissertations from the University of Michigan, completed under the supervision of Prof. Anspach.

sub(computer security) AND yr(>2001 AND <2004)

Finds dissertations on the subject of computer security, written between 2001 and 2004.

disvol(DAI-A 61/05)

Finds dissertations published in Volume 61, Issue 05A of Dissertation Abstracts International.

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