Advanced Searching Using Subject Terms
If your search is tricky or you just aren’t finding the right results, the database’s subject terms can help get your search on track. This works in the Library OneSearch Advanced search, EBSCOhost, and ProQuest databases. Subject terms are tags that the database uses to identify what the article is about. The database uses a specific word to group articles about a particular topic together so that you can locate all articles about a topic, regardless of the words that are used in an article.
How Do I find the Subject Terms?
Since subject terms use specific wording you want to make sure you use the wording that the database uses in your search. To find what terms are used for your topic,
- Conduct a search using general keywords.
- Look at the Subjects area in the results. The subject terms are found in each article listing on the result page of your search.
For example, a search for education and equality could bring up the result below. Any of the subjects in the red box could be used as a search term to get better search results.
Using the subject term in your search
Once you have copied the term from a result go back to the advanced search page. In EBSCO and Library OneSearch you can do this by selecting the advanced search link and with the ProQuest database, you'll want to select the modify search link, both beneath the search box in the right portion of your search results page. Then paste the term into one of your search boxes, and change the dropdown box to the right of that search box to Subject Terms SU. This will bring all the articles tagged with this term as a major topic of the article into your search results.
If you still have questions you can chat in real-time with a librarian here.