Library Guides: ENG 101 Professor Mann: How to Search in Databases

Keyword Searching

Begin Broad with Key Word Searching

Keyword searching is how you typically begin your search in Google. Choose the most significant words or phrases that describe your topic and type them in to get results. You begin broad then narrow as you progress.

Key Points to Consider:

You are searching the description of your content
You create your keywords
What you see is what you get (WYSIWIG)
Must see keywords in results
check your spelling
appear where they appear without revealing context or meaning
the database looks for keywords anywhere in the record
use quotation marks for names or phrases you would like to keep together such as "Frieda Kahlo", "impressionist art"
keywords may yield too many or too few results
keywords can yield many irrelevant results

Subject Heading Searching

Narrow with Subject Headings/Terms Subject

Subject Heading/Term Searching

Each Database uses their own standardized tags or subject headings or subject terms, or thesaurus to identify topics. Subject heading, unlike keywords, do not have to appear in your results.

youth may be the subject heading for the keyword teenager in one database
adolescent may be used in another database for the keyword teenager.

Advantages of using subject headings or terms: subject terms are used not created.

they get at what the content is actually about rather than seeking out the words the data uses to describe the topic
gives results that are more precise
subject terms or thesaurus terms are assigned on the basis of what the record is actually about

How to identify subject headings in a database:

first do a keyword search then find a record closest to your chosen topic
open up the citation portion of the record and search for the subject terms in that record
this is different for each database
at the top of some databases is the term SUBJECT TERMS or THESAURUS may be used

Combining subject heading and keyword searching to narrow your search:

keywords can be used effectively to narrow within a subject area
use keywords if you don't know a subject term
the same words can be used as keywords or subject terms
once you have determined that a phrase or name is a subject heading in that particular database, the words that make up the phrase will appear together and quotation marks are no longer needed

Use AND, OR

Use the AND, OR connectors to narrow or expand a search.

AND will narrow your search if you get too many results combine words by going to the second search box and typing a word or phrase next to the word AND

Example: "Faith Ringgold"

AND riots

OR will expand your search so the results will include all the variations of the word or phrase. OR can be used in the same search box or chosen in the second box. Use OR if you get too few results.

Example: factories or "industrial building" or "car manufacturing plant"

OR "American factories"