{"id":94,"date":"2026-07-30T14:25:18","date_gmt":"2026-07-30T13:25:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/miscellany\/?p=94"},"modified":"2026-07-30T14:25:19","modified_gmt":"2026-07-30T13:25:19","slug":"forcing-stopword-searching-and-using-stopwords-for-ordered-adjacency-on-ovid","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/miscellany\/2026\/07\/forcing-stopword-searching-and-using-stopwords-for-ordered-adjacency-on-ovid\/","title":{"rendered":"Forcing stopword searching and using stopwords for ordered adjacency on Ovid"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

If you’re searching a database like Medline or Embase via Ovid and want to include and, as, for, from, is, of, that, the, this, to, was, were<\/em><\/strong> in a phrase, then the search processing will (kind of) ignore that word. These ‘stopwords’ (or ‘stop-words’) are extremely common and are not indexed and searched in the same way as other words. See here for more details from Ovid<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you search see the signs<\/em> (or even “see the signs”<\/em> in quotes – which can be used to include words that would otherwise have a technical function in Ovid in a phrase), the ‘the’ gets treated as ‘any<\/strong> word (or no words)’ – so results include ‘see traffic signs’, ‘see warning signs’, and ‘see signs’.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The simplest way to force a search of the stopword<\/strong>, I think, is to add a ‘zero or one letter’ wildcard – so see the? signs<\/em> WILL search for ‘the’ and get you just the results you want (EXCEPT for potentially including ‘see then signs’ – if such results existed and you had to trim your results down, I guess you could use NOT see then signs<\/em> for each problem word!)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, stopwords can be actively used<\/strong> for a specific purpose. Ovid’s ADJn proximity\/adjacency operator can be used to find one word within a certain number of words apart from another word. However, the words can appear in any order.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you want to specify the order, you can’t do that with ADJ<\/strong>. But you can use stopwords!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Let’s say you want ’emerging methods’, ’emerging clinical methods’, ’emerging high-tech methods’, but NOT ‘traditional methods. There are emerging medications’ – i.e. ’emerging’ up to three words specifically PRIOR TO ‘methods’. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

emerging ADJ3 methods<\/em> won’t specify the order.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, if you search emerging the the methods<\/em>, you’ll get what you want. Though your searches may need some explanation to the casual observer!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If you’re searching a database like Medline or Embase via Ovid and want to include and, as, for, from, is, of, that, the, this, to, was, were in a phrase, then the search processing will (kind of) ignore that word. These ‘stopwords’ (or ‘stop-words’) are extremely common and are not indexed and searched in the … Continue reading “Forcing stopword searching and using stopwords for ordered adjacency on Ovid”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1915,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[35,9],"class_list":["post-94","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-databases-literature-searching","tag-adjacency-searching","tag-ovid"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/miscellany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/miscellany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/miscellany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/miscellany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1915"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/miscellany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=94"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/miscellany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":95,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/miscellany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94\/revisions\/95"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/miscellany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=94"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/miscellany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=94"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/miscellany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=94"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}