Sometimes, people want to cut straight to the chase, skip all the setup and dilly-dallying and get right to the good stuff. If the previous sentence describes you right now, read on.
The search engine DuckDuckGo (DDG) has in its arsenal a type of shortcut called a Bang. This is a little code preceded by an exclamation mark (aka, a bang) that instructs DDG to search a particular database or site. When entered into a DDG search field – or, if you have DDG set as your default search engine, your browser's address bar – with an accompanying search term, it navigates to that particular site and runs the search. It's a convenient way to immediately search particular databases and jump straight to results without having to navigate to a search engine or the database site.
(Aside: I think an interrobang (‽) would be the ultimate symbol for this particular feature, but that's probably a little too far down the rabbit hole of punctuation usage and terminology for the vast majority of users.)
There are over 13,000 Bangs currently available, and some sites/databases have multiple Bangs. Searching for them on the DDG page is not difficult, but tedious. For convenience's sake, I went ahead and noted all the databases in KUMC's A-Z list that have Bangs assigned to them. Without further ado, here's the list of KUMC subscription (and some freely available!) resources that have at least one DuckDuckGo Bang code assigned to it, and the code itself. There are multiple codes for some sites/databases; the Bangs in these fields are separated by pipe symbols (| – don't use that part).
Name | DuckDuckGo !Bangs |
Clinical Trials | !ctgov |
Directory of Open Access Journals | !doaj |
ERIC.gov | !eric |
Google Scholar | !gsc | !gschol | !googlescholar |
IEEE Xplore (available only on KUMC campus) | !ieee |
JSTOR Archive Collections | !jstor |
MEDLINEPlus | !medlineplus | !mlpes (Spanish) |
NEJM Resident 360 | !nejm (Base journal, not Resident 360) |
ProQuest Dissertations & Theses | !pdqtglobal |
PubMed | !pm | !pub | !pmd | !pubmed | !pmid | !publabs |
ScienceDirect | !sciencedirect | !scidir | !scidirect | !scdirect | !scid | !sdirect |
SpringerLink | !springer | !springerlink | !slink |
Trip Database | !trip |
UpToDate | !uptodate |
USDA Food Composition Databases | !usda |
Web of Science | !wosc |
WorldCat | !worldcat |
PubChem | !pubchem |
NLM's MeSH | !mesh |
NCBI | !ncbi |
You can use these by changing the default search engine setting in your browser (instructions for Firefox, Chrome, Safari, and Edge) to DuckDuckGo, then entering (in the browser address bar) your search terms with the Bang that corresponds to your preferred database.
Hope you find these useful! Let us know if you want a new Bang that isn't on the list yet or, if you prefer, submit a request yourself.