Subject Heading Searches: Why are subject headings useful?

Here are some of the reasons subject heading searches might be useful:

1. Finds articles on a subject

If you search only using keywords, you are only searching through the title, abstract, etc. Sometimes, these do not capture the aboutness of the article in a succinct way. A subject heading will encapsulate what the article is about, and allow you to search by that term.

For example: This article is about LGBT people, yet that term never appears in the title or abstract. However, this article is picked up with a subject heading search.

2. Covers alternate vocabulary & spellings

Often the English language has many different ways of saying the same thing. For example, LGBT, LGBTQ+, queer, gay, trans, etc. all broadly refer to the same population. However, in a keyword search, you would need to cover ALL variation of your key terminology in order to find everything on your topic. Subject headings allow us to instead search for the term that the database uses to cover all of the potential terms. This is also helpful to cover the differences in American vs. British spellings.

For example: In APA PsycInfo the subject heading LGBTQ is used and covers a variety of other terms.

3. Structures concepts hierarchically

Subject headings are structured in an hierarchy; each term can break down into a more specific term. This means that it is easy to change the scope of your search by using the broader or narrower terms defined by the database.

For example: In APA PsycInfo the subject heading Cognitive Behavior Therapy can be expanded upon by using the broader term - Behavior Therapy, or by using a narrower term - Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy, which is a type of cognitive behavior therapy.

4. Eliminates Homonyms

Homonyms are words that are spelled the same, but have different meanings. In a keyword search, you need to weed out alternate meanings of words in your search.

For example: In Academic Search Complete, by doing a keyword search for "depression" you might pick up results about economic depression, meteorological depression, the Great Depression, and the psychological diagnosis.

By using the subject heading Mental Depression, results using the word "depression" in other disciplines will not show up in your search.