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Keywords and Subject Terms

About  Subject Terms

 

Subject terms are:

  • the "official" database vocabulary
  • words and phrases that have been chosen to describe article topics
  • words and phrases that will provide a more focused, accurate search

Guided Search Using EBSCO Interface

 

Learn how to conduct a simple keyword search in Academic Search Premier. This short video is created by the Nova Scotia Community College.

NOTE: some of the information is specific to their library system. 

Subject Terms vs Keywords

 

Online search engines like Google only use keywords, but when searching library databases and catalogues, you can search with either keywords or subject terms. 

 KEYWORD SEARCHING

SUBJECT SEARCHING

 Natural Language

 Pre-defined “controlled” vocabulary

 Familiar

 Not always intuitive

 Search everywhere in a record or page

 Searches specific subject terms only

 Flexible

 Less flexible

 Often yields irrelevant results

 Subheading can help to focus results

 May not find all relevant results

 Results are usually very relevant to topic

 

KEYWORD SEARCH WHEN:

  • your term in very technical or distinctive/unique
  • you are not sure of the item's exact title
  • your topic bridges more than one discipline (eg. autism AND boys)
  • you do not know the correct subject heading - keyword searches are helpful to find subject heading in relevant results list

SUBJECT SEARCHING offers you categories of information. Each item in the library catalogue or database is given one or more subject headings. These controlled vocabulary terms create categories so that all items about the same subject are organized and searchable together. Using subject heading in your searches will return the most relevant results.  However, identifying the appropriate subject term is not always obvious.

SUBJECT SEARCH WHEN:

  • you need information about something, someone, or someplace (for example: books about Pierre Trudeau, not those written by him)
  • you want to locate all relevant resources about your topic
  • you are looking for information that may be represented by a term that has many meanings or could occur in various context.  Whenever possible, browse the "subject search results" list to find the Subheading that applies to your topic.