Q. I’m writing a literature review, and to give an idea of how popular a certain technique is, I’m reporting the number of scholarly articles a particular database brings when the phrase “amperometric detection” and the word “microfluidics” are looked for together in the topic field. Do you have a guideline for how to report the search term in the manuscript? I wrote, “a Web of Knowledge search for (Topic: “amperometric detection” AND “microfluidics”) returns XXX articles.”
A. Your styling is a good solution, since adding the conventional quotation marks around the whole thing would only complicate things and make it less clear. Square or curly brackets might work even better: “a Web of Knowledge search for {Topic: “amperometric detection” AND “microfluidics”} returns XXX articles.”