How do I work with the Quick Search form?
Last updated on September 09, 2025
The Quick Search form is a start page designed for quick and simple searches. Below, you can learn how to use it to start your searches in Engineering Village.
You may select one or more databases to target your search. Refer to the Content sources introduction for details of each database and the search fields available by database for complete details of the individual search fields.
Depending upon your account, one or more databases might be checked by default when you begin your search queries on the Quick Search form.
Note: Engineering Village recommends selecting the database(s) you want in your search query before selecting a field from the dropdown menu, as the only fields that appear are those available in your selected databases.
- Click ‘Search’ at the top of any Engineering Village page.
- Scroll down and click ‘Quick Search.’ The Quick Search form opens.
- Click the database link under the ‘Search documents’ text box. The ‘Available databases’ flyout menu opens.
- To select all databases available for your account, click the ‘Select all available databases’ toggle switch.
- A message on your screen confirms that all databases were added.
- To select one or more databases, click the individual toggle switch(es) for the database(s) that you would like to use for your search queries.
- A message(s) on your screen confirms that your database selection(s) were added.
- To remove all databases available for your account, click the ‘Select all available databases’ toggle switch.
- A message on your screen confirms that all databases were removed.
- You will need to select one or more databases to search.
- To remove one or more databases, click the individual toggle switch(es) for the database(s) you want to remove from your search queries.
- A message(s) on your screen confirms that your database selection(s) were removed.
- Click ‘Explore databases’ to learn more about the Engineering Village databases.
- Click ‘Contact Us’ to contact an Engineering Village sales team member.
Note: The name(s) of the databases you selected will display as a link under the ‘Search documents’ text box. If you selected three or more databases, the number of databases that you selected will display under the ‘Search documents’ text box.
Follow these steps to run a search on the Quick Search form:
- From the ‘Search within’ dropdown menu, click the down arrow to select a field to use for your search term(s).
- Under the ‘Search documents’ label, enter your search term(s) into the text box.
- By default, one row is provided in which you can enter search terms.
- An entry for the first search field is required (as indicated by the asterisk following the ‘Search documents’ label).
- If desired, click ‘+ Add search field’ to reveal a maximum of 12 rows.
- If you added a new search field row, click the down arrow in the box at the left and select an operator (AND, OR, or NOT). See Using Boolean operators for tips.
- If desired, click ‘Add year range.’ The ‘Publish from’ and ‘To’ dropdown menus open.
- From the ‘Publish from’ dropdown menu, click the down arrow to scroll to select the beginning publication year.
- From the ‘To’ dropdown menu, click the down arrow to scroll to select the ending publication year.
- To specify more fields and search terms, repeat steps 1 through 3.
- Click the trash can (delete) icon at the end of a row if you want to remove any row(s) you added.
- After you have completed all your selections for your search query, click the ‘Search’ button to run your search. The page refreshes and the Document results list will appear below the search text box.
- Click the Elsevier logo in the top left corner of the Quick Search Document results list to return to the Quick Search form.
- Alternately, you can click the ‘Search’ tab at the top of any Engineering Village page. The Search dropdown menu opens.
- Click ‘Quick Search.’ The Quick Search form opens.
The ‘Recently searched’ section of the Quick Search form contains up to five of your most recent Quick Search queries. The total number of search results is listed to the right of each search query.
- Click any search queries in this section to rerun the search. The page refreshes, and the Quick Search Document results list displays.
- Click ‘View all history’ for your ‘Search history on Engineering Village’ page.
- Click ‘View More’ to see the entire search query string if it has been truncated. The ‘Recently searched query’ pop-up window opens.
After conducting a search from the Quick Search form, you may further enhance your search queries via dropdown menu selections from the Document results list.
You may create an alert, save this search, or share this search from this search query.
Refer to ‘How can I limit searches by database?’ and ‘How can I work with search results?’ for further information about running Quick searches.
Additionally, you may refer to How can I improve my Expert search? to learn about the precise search features available when running Expert searches.
The chart below describes additional Document results list Quick search features.
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Use ‘Autostemming’ to find variations of search terms | Autostemming determines the suffixes of words and allows you to search for the term as entered, as well as the root word, and other words formed with other possible suffixes. Autostemming stems all search terms unless enclosed in double quotation marks and/or braces or contained in the AUTHOR or FIRSTAUTH fields unless the ‘Autostemming off’ feature has been selected.
manage returns manage, managed, manager, managers, managing, management
This feature is enabled by default. To turn off this feature, select the checkbox under the ‘Autostemming’ tab on the Document results list. |
Apply ‘Autosuggest’ to find search terms quickly from Ei Thesaurus | The ‘Autosuggest’ feature helps researchers find terms quickly by presenting a list of terms from the Ei Thesaurus. If desired, you may enable or disable this feature as follows:
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Select Browse indexes | Select a ‘Browse index’ from the ‘Browse indexes’ tab to select additional search terms. |
Specify the sort order of search results | To limit or specify a sort order of your search results, select the appropriate tab and menu dropdown from the Document results list for your search query. |
There are additional general search tips that are useful to know such as case sensitivity, exact phrase, proximity search, truncation, and wildcards. Refer to the chart below.
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Case sensitivity | The Engineering Village interface is not case sensitive as text can be entered in upper or lower case.
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To search for an exact phrase or for phrases containing stop words (AND, OR, NOT, NEAR), use braces or double quotation marks.
| "near field scanning" "not to exceed" "Northeast University" {Journal of Microwave Power AND Electromagnetic Energy} {rocks OR minerals} {chemical physics} "BS ISO/IEC 21471:2020" {PD ISO/TR 18845:2017} |
Use the NEAR operator to search for terms in proximity | Use NEAR to search for terms in proximity. The NEAR command is used for searching terms that are near or adjacent to each other in any order. The proximity number signifies the maximum number of words that are indexed between the two words in the search query. If no number of words is specified in the proximity query, four (4) is assumed. solar NEAR/2 energy chemical NEAR physics The NEAR proximity operator can be used with autostemming. Wildcards and truncation are supported when used in conjunction with the NEAR proximity operator. |
Use the ONEAR operator to run an ordered search for terms in proximity |
Use ONEAR to search for terms in proximity. The ONEAR command is used for searching terms that are near or adjacent to each other in the order described in the search query.
In Example 1 below, documents will be returned when the term ‘time’ precedes the term ‘travel’ and these terms are located within one word of each other. time ONEAR/1 travel
In Example 2 below, documents will be returned when the term ‘career’ precedes the term ‘development’ and these terms are located within four words of each other. career ONEAR development The ONEAR proximity operator can be used with autostemming.
Wildcards and truncation are supported when used in conjunction with the ONEAR proximity operator. |
Use truncation (*) to search for words that begin or end with the same letters | comput* returns computer, computerization, computerized, computers, computation, computational, computations, computing
*sorption returns adsorption, absorption, chemisorption, desorption, resorption, sorption |
Use a wildcard (?) to replace a single character | wom?n returns woman or women |
Use a multi-character wildcard (*) to replace any number of characters internally. | sul*ate finds sulfate, sulfonate, sulphate, sulphonate |
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