BIO464H5: Biodiversity and Conservation

Keywords are one or more words (or a phrase) that describe the main ideas of your research topic.

Advantages/Disadvantages

• Look for word(s) anywhere in the document
• Do not require specialized, technical language
• More flexible for searching - can combine terms in various ways
  
• Usually generate larger number of results than a subject search
• Often yield many irrelevant results
• Do not take into account the meaning of the words, so if a word has multiple meanings (e.g. mouse), irrelevant results may show up

Make sure to check the following when creating a search strategy:

• Synonyms

• Spelling

• Broad to narrow

• Truncation

• Boolean Logic

Subject Headings are a standardized set of words used to identify what something is about (aka the subject of the content).

Advantages/Disadvantages

• Find materials with one search instead of trying multiple keywords
• Less flexible - need to know exact term or phrase
• Fewer results but usually more relevant to the topic
• Only subject field is searched
• Guessing the subject heading term usually  does not work - need to know the exact word or phrase

A TITLE search allows you to find books, journals, magazines, newspapers, government publications, videos and any other type of library material by title.

• Title searches are generally the fastest way to find a specific item.
• You can omit The, A, An, etc if your TITLE starts with that word. 
• If there is no match for the title you entered, check the spelling and try alternate forms of the word (e.g.: Year Book or Yearbook, U.S. or US or United States). 
• Type the full name of a Journal/Magazine/Newspaper. Do not use abbreviations.