We’ve had a really interesting problem, one I’m at a loss to answer…
The user was looking for articles on ‘lead’ (the metal) and was clearly getting lots of noise from articles that use the not metal version of the term, such as:
- Lead-I ECG devices for detecting sym….
- …Bone Loss and Leads to Faster…
So, how might we get around this?
I tried this lead* NOT leading and it got better results (18,295 from 372,066) but I can’t construct a working search that adds additional terms (eg lead* NOT (leading OR leadership)).
Any solutions?
Trip Database Blog 
October 23, 2019 at 2:29 pm
Use ‘lead’ specifically as a MeSH term.
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October 23, 2019 at 2:31 pm
Alas, Trip – at present – doesn’t use MeSH (hope to introduce next year)
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November 6, 2019 at 11:04 am
Interesting. I’m looking forward to that.
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November 2, 2019 at 7:57 pm
Surely the user does not want all papers about “lead”, but something on “exposure”, “poisoning”, “housing”, etc. What about adding three or more search terms with “and”?
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December 27, 2019 at 5:58 pm
I tried something along the lines of what Margarita suggests above: lead AND (toxi* OR chelat*)
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January 16, 2020 at 11:50 am
Try “lead (pb)”
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