Basic Searching

CINAHL has two search interfaces, Basic and Advanced.

Basic search is the search that appears when you select CINAHL. Use Basic Search for simple search topics where you are not linking several topics in one search, or using advanced search techniques such as selecting a specific journal to search. The basic search box appears in the CINAHL database like the image below.

Example:

In the FIND box in the CINAHL database, enter a search term such as CANCER. This search will return more than 31,000 articles using only the keyword CANCER.

Too many articles

There are two ways to limit the search or return less articles that 31,000.

1. Below in the REFINE SEARCH box you may select the following options under LIMITERS. The two limiters availabe are:

fulltext (search only complete articles)

publication (name of a specific journal)

2. Add another term to the search that will narrow the search. You could add a term such as 'OVARIAN and CANCER'. This will return just over 750 articles.

Too few articles

If you have returned too few articles, you may select the following options under EXPANDERS:

1. Also search within the fulltext of the articles (searching the word if it appears in the article)

2. Include all search terms by default

3. Also search for related words (other words that mean the same as CANCER such as tumor)