Searching in Synthesis

Synthesis provides a powerful language for searching within references in the project.

As you type in the search box at the top of the Synthesis main widow, the references in the references table below are instantly filtered. The search syntax is fairly intuitive - terms, "phrases" in quotes, AND/OR/NOT and parentheses work as expected. You can also filter by specific fields. See Search Syntax for a fullter discussion of the syntax.

The search is performed in the following fields by default:

  • Title
  • Abstract
  • Author
  • (Optional) PDF - A checkbox is provided to the right of the search bar to either include searching within the PDF (full-text) or not.
  • (Optional) Mesh - A checkbox is provided to the right of the search bar to either include searching the MeSH headings (bibliographical data source keywords) or not.

Note: that many of the analysis functions of Synthesis work on the filtered reference list - so as you filter the references using search, tools such as Word Cloud, Topic Clustering, Stats, Bibliography are also filtered.

The results from the Search Filter are also based upon what is selected with the Primary Researcher's Ratings and Secondary Researcher's Ratings drop down lists.