Boolean Operators and Subject Terms

Part one: Looking up subject terms

My search terms and their corresponding subject terms were:

1. "Ethnomedicine"
Subject terms= TRADITIONAL medicine, ETHNOPSYCHOLOGY

2. "Mood disorders"
Subject terms= AFFECTIVE disorders, MOOD research

Part two: Reflection

 What part of this lesson did you find useful? 
This exercise provided a great refresher for me on Boolean phrases. Although I was previously aware of how to utilize them, I feel like this gave me a few reminders and new ideas on how I might be able to put them to work for me on my current topic. The subject terms are not something I have really paid all that much attention to before and will be helpful for looking at future research topics. 

How do you intend to use these skills for future searches? 
I always forget about using the asterisk for truncation! This will make my time spent searching much shorter if I remember to do this instead of searching plural and other forms of my terms. I have already put the Boolean phrases to work in my current research process. There are many different mood disorders to the term “AND” has been helpful for including specific types of mood disorders. For example, “Depression” AND “Bipolar disorder” AND “Anxiety disorders” etc.

Do you have any questions about Boolean searching or subject terms?
I don’t really have any questions about it. I find that using Boolean searching can be more or less helpful depending on the topic I am researching and how broad/narrow I am aiming.

Comments

  1. SamFebruary 13, 2018 at 10:44 AM

    Hi Brandi, this all looks good, and I'm glad to hear that the refresher on Boolean searching was helpful. Note that “Depression” AND “Bipolar disorder” AND “Anxiety disorders” would be a really narrow search since it would only retrieve results that mention all three. Maybe that is what you are looking for.--Sam

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