Tutorial 100-20 : The Pre-history of the Selfie

Basic Search ~ Type Keywords in the box and leave Fields as "Anywhere except full text"

 Note: PsycInfo assumes an AND - so selfie narcissism = selfie and narcissism

Options: 

• Change Fields search to Document Title 

• Use Synonyms Combined with OR  When you want to do this, you must put the terms to be OR'd together in their own box separate from words you want to AND.

Psychologists have created a Thesaurus of Official terms for concepts in their field. 

Using Official terms as Subject Headings can give you better results. 

Using an Official Term does two things:   

• Finds more articles ~ The Official Term is assigned to any articles on that topic, regardless of what term is used by the author.  So, you don't have to guess all the synonyms - just use the Official Term and get all the synonyms. 
• Focuses your results to articles that emphasize your topic ~ The Official Term will only be assigned to articles that cover that topic extensively.  You won't get articles with a tangential mention 

Find out what the Official term for a topic is ~ There are 2 methods - scroll down to see both

Method #1 ~ Search the Thesaurus 

• From the Advanced Search Screen - click on the Thesaurus option in the top menu 

• This opens a new window to the side where you can search the Thesaurus.  Type in the term you think may be the official term

• Look at the results - if your term is an official term, it will be listed with a blue box icon next to it

• If it is not listed and says "Your search for self-identity found 0 terms" - then you know it is not.  Then you can try something else - or Method 2. 
• Sometimes your term will be listed, but without the blue box Icon

• This means that it has a reference to what the correct term is.  So click on it and then it will tell you.

• This means that Gender Roles is not the Official term, but Sex Roles is.

Method #2 ~ Look at an Article you have already found on the topic, see what Official Subject Headings are listed.   

So if you found this article :  

Click on it and scroll down to the Subjects: 

Once you know what the Official Term is - when you search for it just in the SU - Subjects Field, that is what focuses your search and limits to just articles that have been assigned it as an official term. 

1. Type the term in the search box 
2. Change the field to "All Subjects and Indexing - SU"