Thesaurus and Browse Options

A thesaurus is the official subject vocabulary of the database. Use Search Words in Thesaurus to see if your search is official terminology, and to find all articles on that topic.

Browse displays an index or alphabetical list of authors, subjects, and journals in the database. More help.

Search Words in Thesaurus

· Thesaurus Results · USE Preferred Term · Subheadings · No Thesaurus Match

OSearch databases contain subject headings assigned by professional indexers, based on controlled vocabulary lists. A thesaurus is the list of approved words and phrases used by indexers to describe the subject matter of the database.

For some databases, the thesaurus is available online and integrated with searching. Search Words in Thesaurus means that your search first looks for a match in the thesaurus rather than in the database of citations.

When you select a term from the thesaurus, the system retrieves articles that contain that term as a subject.

Thesaurus Results

The thesaurus search finds all thesaurus entries that contain your word or phrase. For example, a search on Insulin produces a list that includes:

Insulin
Insulin Antibodies
Insulin Dependent Diabetes Mellitus – USE Diabetes Mellitus Type 1
Insulinoma

Options on this page:

• Search: Finds articles with this term as a subject heading.

• Focus: Finds articles with this term as a major subject heading. Focus restricts results to records in which the term describes an important or primary aspect of the article.

• Expand: Broadens results by finding articles with this subject or any subject that is narrower in the thesaurus hierarchy. For example, expand Sleep Disorders to retrieve articles that relate to specific kinds of sleep disorders, such as Hypersomnia and Insomnia, as well as articles on the overall subject of Sleep Disorders.

• Expand/Focus: Broadens results by finding articles with this subject term or any of its narrower subjects, and then restricts those results to articles in which these subjects describe an important or primary aspect of the article.

• View Thesaurus: Displays this subject heading in the thesaurus. The thesaurus display may include a scope note, textual definition or description of how the term is used; shows the term's hierarchy (broader and narrower terms); and lists related terms (similar in concept but not hierarchically linked).

USE Preferred Term

Some terms in the thesaurus are references from unused or non-preferred terms, to the correct or preferred terms. When you retrieve results, the system automatically transfers your search over to the preferred term.

Insulin Dependent Diabetes Mellitus – USE Diabetes Mellitus Type 1

Subheadings

Subheadings occur in medical databases that use Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) to define preferred terminology for medical topics. Subheadings are terms that cover general, frequently discussed aspects of a subject, such as "diagnosis." Indexers link subheadings with MeSH headings to describe exactly what aspects of the subject the author is discussing.

After you select a subject, the system offers a list of subheadings for that term. From the subheadings list, you can select one or more subheadings to restrict your search to the specified aspect(s).

No Thesaurus Match

The word or phrase you search may not find any match in the thesaurus. This means that the thesaurus does not use your term, either as a valid subject heading or as a reference to a valid subject heading. For example, the phrase "insulin tolerance" finds no match in the MeSH medical thesaurus. In this case, you have three options:

• Get Suggested Terms: Provides a list of thesaurus terms that might be relevant to your search. To compile this list, the system first searches your word or phrase anywhere in the database, including titles and abstracts. Then, the system analyses the subject headings in the resulting set of records. Finally, the system presents the top 16 subject headings, starting with the most frequently occurring.

• Search as Keyword or Phrase: Searches your word or phrase anywhere in the database.

• Browse Nearby Subject Headings: Displays thesaurus entries that are alphabetically near the word or phase you searched, in case of a misspelling.

Browse

With Browse, you can look through an alphabetical list of the authors, subjects, or journals in the database. For example, view subject entries that begin with a particular word, and then select one or more of those subjects. Or, look for an author to see whether he has published under varying forms of name.

Tips for browsing:

• For author names, start with the author’s last name.
• For a common last name, also include the first initial (e.g. SMITH M).
• For subjects, start with the first word.
• For journal titles, skip initial articles (A, AN, THE) and start from the next word.
• If you are not sure what comes next, put in only that one word.
• If you are browsing a word that is the stem of many other words (e.g. ART), include the first letter of the next word (e.g. ART F to get to Art From ... ).

July 2005

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