Basic Search

Near the top of the screen you will see a search box for this journal. Type in your search term and press the “go” button (or just hit the return).

SITE SEARCH TAB

Basics

There are several different ways to search: full search, citation search, qualified search or any combination of the three. When searching for a particular article, searches that are specific will run faster and will be more likely to return the actual article(s) of interest. For best results, you should enter the minimum amount of information necessary to uniquely identify the article(s) required.

(To see full size, click on the picture.)

Full search

Use this search option to match keywords across entire articles, including authors' names, abstracts, affiliations and references. Simply type in the words that interest you and click on the 'Search' button.

You may refine your search by selecting phrasing options so that your results match 'ALL of the words' or 'the exact PHRASE' entered. If you do not select either of these options, your search will match 'ANY of the words' entered. You may further refine your search when 'ANY of the words' is selected by using quotation marks or plus (+) or minus (-).

Citation search

Use citation search if you have the volume number and starting page for the article that you are looking for (for example, from a reference) or the DOI (Digital Object Identifier) for that article.

For a volume and page number search, simply enter the numbers into the appropriate boxes and click on 'search'. This will return the article that you are looking for along with any other articles that start on the same page. For a DOI citation search, simply insert the characters that follow 10.1038/ in the appropriate box and click on 'search'. All articles published by NPG have the prefix 10.1038, and by entering the suffix, which may consist of both numbers and letters, you will identify a specific article. A DOI is assigned to each item of editorial content and is a unique identifier for that item only. For more information about DOIs click here.

Qualified search

Use qualified search to narrow down your results, or for more specific searching than 'full search' allows. It can be used when a particular article is required but only a fragment of information is known such as part of the title or approximate date of publication. Any number of the search fields may be used in combination to narrow down your search.

Refining your search

If your search retrieves a large number of articles, you may wish to refine your search by clicking on the 'Refine this query' link at the bottom of the page. You may then add to or change your search to improve your results.

Check spelling

Make sure your search terms are spelled correctly. Misspelled keywords are a common cause of failed search attempts.

Multiple words

Using multiple words will return a greater number of results than a single word, but the most relevant will be displayed first in the list of results. For example, typing Darwinian evolution selection will return more results than typing just evolution. The articles retrieved are displayed in order of relevance, so that those articles with all of the words requested (Darwinian, evolution and selection) are displayed first and those with only the last word requested (selection) at the end of the list.

You may narrow your search by selecting phrasing options so that your results match 'ALL of the words' or 'the exact PHRASE' entered.

Using plus (+) or minus (-)

Use a plus sign when your search term or phrase must appear in the search results. Use a minus sign to indicate undesirable term(s). The plus sign tells the search engine that a certain word or phrase is required in the search results (+Darwinian +evolution), and a minus sign indicates that a word or phrase must be absent in the search results (-human). Plus and minus can only be used when 'ANY of the words' is selected. Plus and minus are ignored if the 'ALL of the words' or 'the exact PHRASE' options are selected.

Note: Do not leave spaces between the plus or minus sign and the search term.

Using quotation marks

Use quotation marks to find words that must appear adjacent to each other, for example, the search "Darwinian evolution" will give results including both words together. Without the quotation marks, with the default 'ANY of the words' selected, the search results will include all articles containing the word Darwinian and all those containing evolution. Either word may appear anywhere, and in any order, within the document.

Wildcards

Wildcard searches can expand the number of matches for a particular request. The * character is used as the wildcard character. For instance, searching for carbo* will find the words carbon, carboxylase, carbonates, carbohydrate, and any other word that starts with carbo.

Searching for *morph* will find the words morphogen, polymorph, amorphous, metamorphosis, and any other word that contains morph anywhere in the word.

Wildcards may be combined with the standard plus (+) and minus (-) modifiers and in quotes for phrases.