Subject headings are words or short phrases that are added to the records of every item in the database. Subject headings use a ‘controlled language’, meaning there is only one word or phrase used to describe a specific concept. In theory, this means that every reference discussing schizophrenia, for example, will have a subject heading related to schizophrenia. Searching using subject headings will retrieve references on a topic regardless of the wording used by individual authors.
Using the Explode and/or Focus functions with your subject headings may give your search results more relevance.
We recommend searching for each concept of your search one at a time. This allows greater flexibility later on when combining your search lines.
If you can’t find a subject heading to match your search term(s) using the instructions below, try again using some synonyms.
If that does not work, search by keyword instead.
You can click the Scope icon to find out the definition of a heading.
If there is more than one suitable heading, you can select them all at once, but we recommend taking one heading at a time and repeating the process to add extra subject headings.
For your chosen heading(s), you have the option to Explode the heading(s), Focus the heading(s), or both.
If your search reaches 5 lines or more, you can click Expand on the right to see the entire search history: