INSPEC on the Web (OVID): Quick Reference Guide

OVID offers three search modes: Basic, Advanced, Field Searching. You can navigate between the modes using the menu at the top of the screen.

The system defaults to Advanced searching, initially Keyword, which offers one search box and a few optional limits.

Enter surname, space, first initial in search box. Click on Perform Search button.
This will take you to an index page. Mark each plausible author choice in the box. Click on Perform Search.

Quick and efficient search: enter surname, initial$.au in the search box

INSPEC utilizes a "thesaurus", a mapped scheme of subjects that are assigned to articles to facilitate subject searching. You may browse terms in the online thesaurus. If you know a thesaurus term/phrase, you may search it directly.

Quick shortcut to take advantage of subject thesaurus: Keyword search. Display results. Choose best reference (which citation best fits what you are searching for). Click on Complete Reference. Browse down to Subject Headings. Click on highlighted thesaurus term that best fits your search intent.

The Main Search Page offers a few choices of ways to Limit your searches under the search box:
Latest Update, Abstracts, English Language, Journal Paper, Publication Year.

To see all fields in which one may search, click on the Search Fields icon in the menu.

For more information, click on the next to each. To search specific fields, enter the search terms and field tag separated by a "." (physical review letters.jn). INSPEC offers a hierarchical subject Classification Code system. If you know that A4250 is Quantum Optics, you may search it (a4250.cc).

Once you have two (or more) searches, you can Combine searches, with the boolean operators AND for intersection of sets and OR for the union (totality) of sets.
     • On the Main Search Page with your search history, click the Select checkboxes next to the two search statements.
     • Choose Combine with AND (or, Combine with OR).
     • Click Continue to post the search.

To retrieve all words that match the beginning of your word, use the $ sign or the ":". For example, "holograph$" retrieves holograph, holography, holographies, holographic, holographically.
Finer distinctions:
      ? (One or no characters within or at the end of a stem, e.g., "colo?r" = both color and colour)
      # (Replaces a single character within a word or a single character at the end)
      $n (n = number of letters after the stem of the word).

This advanced search Citation Manager displays immediately following every set of search results. The Citation Manager is easy to use and facilitates Displaying/Printing/Emailing/Saving.