Info Guides: Learning and Guidance guide: Prepare to search

TOP thesauri and dictionaries in your field

A good way to begin your search is to use a dictionary or a specialized lexicon of terms (thesaurus) to identify suitable search terms or synonyms and broaden your search. Many databases include this feature, also called Subject Terms; Subject Headings, or Descriptors.

General Finnish ontology YSO
General Finnish Ontology YSO is a trilingual ontology consisting mainly of general concepts.
Library of Congress subject headings LCSh
Find English search words by using United States Library of Congress Thesaurus.

ERIC (Education Resources Information Center) Linkki avautuu uuteen ikkunaan
The ERIC (Education Resources Information Center) online system provides a centralized Web site with Thesaurus for searching the ERIC bibliographic database.
The ERIC Thesaurus is a leading authority on the language used in the field of education. It is a controlled vocabulary with nearly 12,000 terms, including more than 4,500 descriptors and 7,000 synonyms. Descriptors from the Thesaurus are assigned to each of the 1.9 million records in ERIC to describe the main subjects of the content. Synonyms point searchers to the preferred term, or descriptor, in ERIC.
MOT Kielipalvelu Linkki avautuu uuteen ikkunaan
MOT Kielipalvelu includes dictionaries and translation (kääntäjä) and proofing (kielentarkistin) functions.
Voit käyttää MOT Sanakirjoja® kätevästi kaikissa laitteissasi myös Jamkin verkon ulkopuolella – tilaa vain kirjautumislinkki Sanakirja.fi-palveluun MOTin kautta!

Jamkin verkossa: Valitse organisaatiolistasta Jyväskylän ammattikorkeakoulu ja syötä Jamkin antama sähköpostiosoite. Saat sähköpostiisi kirjautumislinkin, jolla pääset käyttämään MOT Kielipalvelua® missä vain, milloin vain.

Subject search

Focus the search with subject terms

In subject search, the agreed vocabulary terms, in other words, thesaurus is used
The search only targets words that describe the content of the publication in the database's subject field
Accurate search if the relevant word you choose covers your topic well
Useful and effective in a wide range of data, such as a large article database.

Enable different vocabularies and thesauri and enhance your search. You can find thesauri online, as well as in the connection of some databases..

Information seeking is a smart use of appropriate words, not information technology!

find concepts related to your topic
look for exact terms as well as wider entities
also note other alternative or similar concepts

Finto.fi Thesauri The Finnish National Library's Finto service provides information seekers with vocabularies and ontologies.

Watch the video: Find search words from thesauri

Combination of search terms

How to combine search terms?

Use Boolean operators:

AND (narrow) use when you want ALL search terms must appear in resulting publication or document.

boolen AND-operaattori

For example,with terms students AND well-being you will find information on students' well-being .

OR (broaden) use when you want ANY of your search terms must appear in resulting publication or document.
For example, search query well-being OR "life quality" OR welfare broadens the search and produces many results.
NOT (narrow) use when you want to exclude word(s) from your resulting publication or document.

For example, search query students NOT "open university" excludes the last word from results.

Learning and Guidance guide

Identify your information need

TOP thesauri and dictionaries in your field

Subject search

Focus the search with subject terms

Combination of search terms

How to combine search terms?

AND (narrow) use when you want ALL search terms must appear in resulting publication or document.

OR (broaden) use when you want ANY of your search terms must appear in resulting publication or document.

NOT (narrow) use when you want to exclude word(s) from your resulting publication or document.