| Keyword Searching: | Subject Searching: |
| With keyword searching, you must think of the words or phrases you want to search. This gives you a lot of flexibility, but also means that you might have to think of synonyms and different ways of expressing a concept or idea. | You must use a word or phrase that is an accepted subject heading in the database you are searching. Subject headings are assigned to every article, book, etc. that is contained in the database. These subject headings make up "a controlled vocabulary." Sometimes the database has a thesaurus which lists the subject headings. |
| You can use connectors like AND and OR to join different concepts together. | You must use the exact subject heading. |
| Often, you can use wildcard or truncation symbols to get different endings to the root word you type in. | Adding a wildcard or truncation symbol will usually wreck a subject search. |
| Usually looks for the search term in the title, author, subject & abstract fields; sometimes looks in the full-text of the article, too. | Looks for the search term only in the subject field. |
| Can result in a lot of "false hits," particularly if a search term has multiple meanings. For example, a search on "love" could get items about the emotion, about tennis, about Jennifer Love Hewitt, and about Love Canal. | Subject searching can be narrower and more accurate, so long as the search term matches up well with what you're looking for. Beware of broad search terms, though - you may get hundreds of items. |
| Keyword searching is great when you're looking for a cutting edge topic that might not have been given a subject heading yet. | Subject searching helps you avoid having to think of lots of synonyms and alternative terms to use. |
| Sometimes, it's a good idea to start with a keyword search. Look at some of the items you found, pick the best one, and look at the subject headings assigned to it. Then, do a subject search using one of those terms (or several of them, if allowed in the database). | |
