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Proquest Dissertations & Theses Global

Power Searching Information

   Ready to Power Search Dissertations and Theses?
 

 

Here are the most important things to remember:

  1. This index is not professionally cataloged.  
  2. The search platform is  and uses its search syntax.
  3. The Keywords and Subject Headings are selected by the author, so consider all relevant synonyms.  
  4. If the search result set is too cumbersome, consider narrowing with at least one of your concepts by searching in the TITLE field only
 How to Power Search

This index is not professionally cataloged.  The Keywords and Subject Headings are selected by the author, so consider all relevant synonyms.  If the search result set is too cumbersome, consider narrowing with at least one of your concepts by searching in the TITLE field only

ProQuest maintains several pages with useful information on optimizing your search. Some examples:

 

How to search the Dissertations and Theses Database
 

Search Tips - Boolean, Truncation, Proximity, Wildcards

 


​ Subject Headings, Keywords, Title
  • Dissertations and Theses database has no thesaurus of descriptors (subject headings) but there is a subject heading lookup. 
  • Remember: The Keywords and Subject Headings are selected by the author, so consider all relevant synonyms.  
  • The title is often an useful field to look for important words and concepts.
  • The database includes Masters' Theses but you can use the limit button to search dissertations only.

​ Fielded Searches/Combining Sets : Examples

Example of a search limited to TITLE field combining three concepts with synonyms

Other Sample Searches