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Keyword Searching
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vs. |
Subject Searching
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- Uses natural language or everyday words to describe your topic - good to start with
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- Uses assigned or "controlled vocabulary" words to describe the content of each item in a database
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- More flexible - can combine multiple terms together in many ways
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- Less flexible - need to search with the exact controlled vocabulary term
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- database looks for keywords anywhere in the record (title, author, abstract/summary, text of the article or item, subject, etc.)
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- database looks for subjects mainly in the subject heading or descriptor field, where the most relevant words appear
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- Usually results in a broader search that may yield too many, too few or irrelevant hits
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- Usually results in a more focused search with highly relevant and precise hits
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