The Frequency Operator will ensure that documents containing your search term or phrase will be retrieved only if the word or phrase occurs at least the number of times that you specify. In general, documents that contain many instances of your query text will be more relevant to you than documents that contain few instances of your query text.
Syntax for this operator is as follows: "x.fd./freq=n", where x is the query, fd is the 2-letter field name, and n is the threshold frequency. There are no spaces in this command.
For example, the statement below will only retrieve documents in which the phrase "text analysis" appears in the abstract at least three times.
Notice how the words "text analysis" are highlighted in the abstract of the document.
Important Error message
Note that the Frequency Operator may not be used in search commands that reference multiple fields, or fields that consist of a combination of other fields.
For example, the following search example would produce an error message:
cross sectional.ti,ab. /freq=3
Next month: Using the Search Fields Feature in OVID
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