Subject Searching
Most databases, including periodical
indexes (more on these in Module 2), organize their records by
subject so that you can find all the articles about your topic under one
term. The index creators have created a list of approved subject headings
(controlled vocabulary) to help you locate
all the relevant articles on your topic.
How do you find the approved subject headings?
- Use a subject guide.
Some indexes provide a list of subject headings. If
you search for a word that is not in the index, it may suggest an approved
subject heading you could use. This list is called a subject guide or
a thesaurus.
In
this example, there are 1,712 articles about the Internet in this
database. If you looked for articles using the words Information
Superhighway, this database would direct you to use the subject
heading Internet.
- Guess.
By selecting good keywords you may get lucky and find
out your words are the same terms the indexers chose as a subject heading.
- Look at the subject
headings for one good article.
Find one good article for your topic and look at the
subject headings listed. Entering another search using the best subject
heading should help you find relevant information.
