Recall the initial search window:

TheFind Terms menu can be used to limit searches to specific fields of the record. Let's look at each of them in turn.

Words anywhere.  With this option the computer will search for the word or words you have typed anywhere in the record, including the title, the descriptors, the subject, and, most importantly, the abstract.  The option is useful if you are searching for a term that is not widely used and you want to make sure that you locate all the relevant articles.  However, just because a term appears in the abstract of a paper does not mean that the article addresses that issue in any depth.  In fact, this search strategy often results in large numbers of articles, many of which, upon examination, turn out to be of little or no use. 

The best advice here is to first use one of the more limiting strategies and use the Words anywhere option only as a last resort.

Title. Searches are done only in the title field.  Since a well done title should include the basic information about the independent and dependent variables in a study, this option would appear to be a good way to find articles on just your topic.  The problem is that sometimes authors don't include all of the critical information in their title so you may miss useful material.

It is often useful to use this field in the early stages of a search to help you see just how much information there is on a topic.  However, you may not want to limit yourself to just this field.

Author. Since researchers often publish multiple studies in the same area, if you can find one very good article on a topic, if it often helpful to see if you can find other work by the same author.  However, just as with the Title field, this strategy is best used in conjunction with searches of other fields.

Subject. This is one of the most helpful search strategies since using the Subject option allows you to search in the Descriptor (DE) and the Subject (SU) fields at the same time.  Both of these fields classify articles according to some commonly used vocabulary but they have different sources.  The DE field entries are provided by the developers of the database.  This method makes use of the controlled vocabulary outlined in the Thesaurus.  On the other hand, the entries in the Subject field are provided by the author of the article.  Searching both of these fields is often the best way to begin a search when you are not quite sure what terms might be useful.

Of course, if you are not sure what terms might have been used to classify the articles you are interested in, you will need to go to the Thesaurus. 

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