Quotation Marks

Close this window

Enclose multiple-word terms in quotation marks (" ") to indicate that the words should appear together in the order presented. For example, enter:

"risk analysis"

to retrieve only answers where the terms appear together in that order. If quotation marks are not used, all answers in which both risk and analysis appear in the same sentence are retrieved.

Quotation marks are also needed for searching terms that include special symbols such as parentheses. For example, if a molecular formula includes parentheses, you need to enclose the search term in quotes:

"(C2 H4 O)n C4 H6 O2"

In addition, if a search term contains any of the STN stopwords (see the list below), the search term need to be enclosed in quotes. If quotes are not used, then the stopword will be dropped from the search term. For example, if BISPHENOL A (chemical name) is not enclosed in quotes, only BISPHENOL will be searched.

Stopwords:

A, ABOUT, AFTER, ALL, ALREADY, ALSO, ALTHOUGH, ALWAYS, AMONG, AN, ANY, ARE, AS, AT, BE, BECAUSE, BEEN, BETWEEN, BOTH, BUT, BY, COULD, DO, DOES, DURING, EACH, EITHER, FOR, FROM, FURTHER, HAD, HAS, HAVE, HAVING, HERE, HOWEVER, IF, IN, INTO, IS, IT, ITS, MAY, MORE, MOREOVER , MOST, MUST, NO, OF, ON, ONLY, OTHER, OUR, SEE, SEEN, SHOULD, SINCE, SUCH, THAN, THAT, THE, THEIR, THEM, THEN, THERE, THEREFORE, THESE, THEY, THIS, THOSE, THOUGH, THROUGH, THUS, TO, WAS, WE, WERE, WHAT, WHEN, WHERE, WHETHER, WHICH, WHILE, WHOSE, WILL, WITH, WITHIN, WOULD