SciFinder Scholar's research topic algorithm uses a thesaurus and natural language searching to search both Chemical Abstracts and MEDLINE. This means that you do not need to use truncation or Boolean operators in SciFinder. You can use operators if you want to, but there is NO truncation symbol for the database. SciFinder looks up your word in the thesaurus, finds all synonyms and other forms of the word, and performs the search on all possible options.
Follow these steps to perform a topic search in SciFinder.

1. Click on the Explore button from the initial Task menu.
2. Click the Research Topic button , in the left column of the next menu.
3. Type your topic in the text box. Remember that SciFinder uses NO truncation. You can combine your terms using Boolean operators or just write them out as a phrase. Click on the Filters button to automatically refine your search by author, company, document type, publication year, and language.
   
   Helpful Hint: Instead of using Boolean operators, put a preposition, such as "of" between all your terms. The system will not know how to parse your statement, and it will give you all possible combinations of your search terms.
4. Select the combination or combinations of terms that best describe your topic by clicking in the check-box beside each applicable option. Click Get References.
   
   Terminology Note: A "Concept" includes synonyms and other forms of the word, found in the CAS thesaurus. "Closely associated" terms are within five words of one another or in the title or the same index term.
5. Once you have some results from your topic search, there are many ways in which you can analyze or refine your hits. Please see Refining and Analyzing Lists of References for more information.