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Biology 201A: Biology: Searcing tips

Using primary scientific literature; finding scholarly articles in journal databases; citing, using CSE style

What are Subject headings and Keywords?

Subject headings describe the content of each item in a database. Use these headings to find relevant items on the same topic.  Searching by subject headings (a.k.a. descriptors) is the most precise way to search article databases.

It is not easy to guess which subject headings are used in a given database. For example, the phone book's Yellow Pages use subject headings. If you look for "Movie Theatres" you will find nothing, as they are listed under the subject heading "Theatres - Movies."

Keyword searching is how you typically search web search engines.  Think of important words or phrases and type them in to get results.

Here are some key points about each type of search:

Keywords

 vs.

Subjects
  • 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

When you search a database and do not get the results you expect, Ask Us for advice.

Keywords and Subject Terms

Google Scholar and Google Search Tips

  • Always connect to Google Scholar via the library website, either from the Databases List or from a Research Guide.
  • On Google Scholar, under Scholar Preferences, you can manually set your Google Scholar Library Links. 

5 Must-Have Google Search Tips for Students

Click on the link to see tips and watch a short video

If you want ONLY results from an educational site, end your keyword search with    site:.edu

If you want ONLY results from a government site, end your keyword search with     site:.gov

If you want ONLY results from museum sites, end your keyword search with           site:.museum

(Note: no spaces between colons and be sure to include the  period after the colon)

To get ONLY results with PDFs, end your keyword search with       filetype:pdf

To get ONLY results with PowerPoint, end your keyword search with      filetype:ppt

Google vs. Databases

Academic Search Complete (EBSCO)