Natural Language Searching in MEDLINE (and more) on OvidSP

In the new OvidSP interface for MEDLINE and other Ovid databases, you can use natural language searching to find the information that you need. Natural langauge processing allows users to enter any search term or question with no need for special syntax or punctuation. This means that users can query the database just as they might query a person by asking questions like:

• What are the imaging guidelines for headaches?
• What causes pityriasis rosea?
• Is there a link between autism and the MMR vaccine?

Natural language searching will work in OvidSP's Basic Search Mode, one of several search modes in OvidSP. Other search modes include Ovid Syntax which will allow users' to harness search tools like MEDLINE's MeSH subject headings and subheadings for precise searching.

OvidSP's Basic Search mode works by:

1. Filtering the terms of your query, eliminating irrelevant noise words and tightening word choices into validated search terms and phrases.
2. Utilizing a proprietary medical lexicon (drawn from the Unified Medical Language System [UMLS] Meta-thesaurus, medical dictionaries and thesauri, medical acronyms, drug and disease names, and standard American and British English dictionaries) to expand terms to include: word variations, synonyms (such as alternate names of drugs or diseases), acronyms, and alternative spellings (e.g. British and American English).
3. Analyzing your original query to identify the nouns, noun phrases, and adjectives that shape the topics of your query, and incoporating them into an overall, expanded search strategy.
4. Executing searches using these expansions and compiling all findings into a single results set on the Main Search Page.

Best practices in Basic Search Mode include:

• State your query as concisely as possible. Try not to use unnecessary modifiers such as "really big ekg changes in advanced hypokalemia."
• Use nouns more than verbs.
• Do not "force phrasing" by imposing quotation marks, parenthesis, or hyphens within your query. For example, if you enter weather-related you lose all expansions on the word weather because Ovid perceives the hyphenated phrase as a single term that has no possible expansions.
• Avoid spelling errors by leaving the Check Spelling box selected.

Ovid's new OvidSP interface will debut at Himmelfarb Library in late December. This new interface will be available for all Ovid databases including MEDLINE, CINAHL, PsycINFO, Global Health, AMED, International Pharmaceutical Abstracts, SPORTDiscus, and Ovid's EBM databases. To try OvidSP, access any Ovid database, then click on 'Try OvidSP!' in the top horizontal menu bar.

If you have questions, please contact Laura Abate at 202-994-8570 or mlblea@gwumc.edu.