INF 330: Advanced Research Skills

A controlled vocabulary is a list of words and phrases, called subject headings, built into most databases that indexers (aka the database's librarians) use to organize all the articles and other content in a database. When you search using subject headings, it's a different building process than when you search using keywords, so it might feel unfamiliar the first few times you try it.

Controlled vocabularies are a way to search a database that should pull back every article (or item) that's been "tagged" with that subject heading. 

Some databases have names for their controlled vocabularies, here are some of them:

One way to start getting familiar with the a controlled vocabulary is by seeing what subject headings get attached to the articles you're finding. Here's what you're seeing in this example:

• A keyword search for anti-racism and health was done in PubMed.
• One of the results was an article titled Tackling Racism as a "Wicked" Public Health Problem: Enabling Allies in Anti-Racism Praxis.
• Looking at the article's abstract, if you scroll to the bottom of the page you'll see the MeSH terms that best describe what it's about.

Note: on the abstract page (aka detailed record) you can click on any of the MeSH terms to search using that term.

This tutorial will give you chance to practice using PubMed by conducting a basic medical literature search. Click the link below to get started!

This tutorial, created by PubMed, will give you even more experience using MeSH terms within that database. Click on the image below to get started!

This tutorial will show you how to use evidence-based practice when searching clinical questions using PubMed.  Click on the image below to get started!