Most periodical databases organize their records by subject so that you can find all the articles about your topic under one term. You may have noticed the field for Subject Headings in the two previous database records. The database creators have created a list of approved subject headings to help you locate all the relevant articles on your topic.

How do you find the approved subject headings?

1. Use a subject guide.
   Some databases provide a list of subject headings. If you search for a word that is not in the database, it may suggest an approved subject heading you could use. This list is called a subject guide or a thesaurus.



In this example, there are 1,712 articles about the Internet in this database. If you looked for articles using the words Information Superhighway, this database would direct you to use the subject heading Internet.


2. Guess.
   By selecting good keywords you may get lucky and find out your words are the same terms the indexers chose as a subject heading.
   
   
3. Look at the subject headings for one good article.
   Find one good article for your topic and look at the subject headings listed. Entering another search using the best subject heading should help you find relevant information.