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Advanced Searching Techniques

What are Subject Terms?

Items in databases are classified according to subject terms. These subject terms will describe what topic or subject area the item relates to. Searching by subject terms is a very useful strategy because it allows you to find highly relevant articles quickly. However, subject terms can be a little tricky to work with because they are highly specific to the database you use. Different databases will have preferred words to refer to particular subjects, so you will need to know what the preferred terminology of a database is. Variations or synonyms will not work when searching using subject headings, nor will mis-spelled words.

To search using a subject heading, use the Field Code option in the advanced search page. Field codes allow you to be specific in where you search for a term in an item's record. Selecting the "Subject" field code will limit your search to only the subject headings listed for an item. 

 

Why Use Subject Headings?

Keyword searches can results in a large number of irrelevant results.

  • The keyword may appear in the abstract, but it may not be the focus of the article. 
  • The keyword may be used in a different context than you intended. 
    • Example: If you search for "AIDS" (disease), your results may include hearing aids, audiovisual aids, clinical aides, teaching aids, etc.

Subject terms reflect the main focus of result, searching by subject is a quick way to narrow your results to a particular topic.

Subject headings yield very precise, focused searches, so as a general rule of thumb, if there is an appropriate subject heading for one of your concepts--USE IT!

However, subject searching should be used as a second step. Try a keyword search first, then see what subjects are recommended to you, or look at the subject headings for useful search results.

Source one and source two

How to Find Subject Headings?

Start with a keyword search

Browse the results looking for relevant articles

Look at the subject headings for each result. The subject terms should be listed under the author and publication information.

For example the following book "Talkies, Road Movies and Chick Flicks: Gender, Genre and Film in American Cinema" has the following Keywords:

PERFORMING ARTS / Film / History & Criticism; Gender identity in motion pictures; Motion pictures--United States--Sound effects; Film genres; Romance films--United States--History and criticism; Road films--United States--History and criticism; Women in motion pictures

Visual representative of above instructions

You can also use a database thesaurus

Keywords vs Subject Terms

Keywords

 vs.

Subject Terms
  • natural language words describing your topic - good to start with
  • pre-defined "controlled vocabulary" words used to describe the content of each item (book, journal article) in a database                                                   
  • more flexible to search by - can combine together in many ways
  • less flexible to search by - need to know the exact controlled vocabulary term                                          
  • database looks for keywords anywhere in the record - not necessarily connected together
  • database looks for subjects only in the subject heading or descriptor field, where the most relevant words appear                                                               
  • may yield too many or too few results
  • if too many results - also uses subheadings to focus on one aspect of the broader subject                          
  • may yield many irrelevant results
  • results usually very relevant to the topic                      

 

Source

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