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    • START
      • Introduction
      • Chapter 1: Choosing Your Topic
      • Chapter 2: Developing the Search Strategy
      • Chapter 3: Evaluating Your Information Sources
      • Chapter 4: Preparing Your Bibliography
      • Chapter 5: Finding Help with Your Research Paper
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The first step to researching your topic is to find other words or phrases to use when later searching databases or on the Web. Related search words and phrases allow you to maximize your research results and help you to consider other aspects of your topic. In addition, should you decide to take a different approach to your current topic, or change your topic altogether, this step helps you to explore other related subjects.

When searching for related search terms, you will encounter two main classifications of organizing vocabulary:

Controlled lists (Your best source for related search terms.)
Uncontrolled lists

Controlled Lists and Controlled Vocabulary

 

Controlled lists have been developed and organized by somebody else. You can then search these lists for particular words or phrases. For example, if you want more information on how snowflakes are formed, you could perform a subject-heading controlled search on "snow" when in a library catalog.

Controlled vocabulary can be found in such resources as a thesaurus. A thesaurus provides you with a list of related or similar terms for a particular word that you want. This type of controlled list is created by somebody else, containing vocabulary to help you find related search words or phrases to use when you conduct your research.

Two controlled ways to find related search words or phrases are with the Library of Congress Catalog via the Internet and the Library of Congress Subject Headings in printed form at the MSOE Library.

Library of Congress Catalog on the Internet:

The Internet version of the catalog is intended to be a bibliographic source, cataloging materials that may not necessarily be found in the MSOE Library. However, the Library of Congress Catalog will provide you with a list of related research terms.

Tip: Follow the instructions below once you are in the Library of Congress Catalog. You might want to print these instructions so that you can easily refer to them.

 

1. Choose Basic Search or Advanced Search.
2. Type in your topic.
3. Choose to "Search exact words" or "Search word variants."

Tip: Exact words is probably the best choice at this point since you are looking specifically for your chosen topic. However, you should try it both ways to get more related research topics.

 

4. Select which Fields to search.

Tip: Select "Titles" and "Subjects" for the most results.

 

5. Click SEARCH.

Note: The results that the catalog retrieves contain only bibliographic information about books and other journals related to your search topic. You will not find full text for research information here.

 

6. On the results page, click RELATED.

 

Note: The catalog will take the first 20 items of your search results and will list related subjects in order of frequency.

You now have your related search topics! Print this list of topics for future reference.

Go to online Library of Congress Catalog.

Library of Congress Subject Headings in the MSOE Library

The Library of Congress Subject Headings is a collection of reference books that are written like a thesaurus, providing an alphabetical list of terms and their related or similar terms for you to use when conducting research.

For example, let’s say that you have chosen to research space vehicles. When you look for "space vehicles," the book provides you with other related phrases or terms and general classification, like "space rocket," "spacecraft," and "space probes." The results of this search are especially useful when conducting an uncontrolled search whereby you need many different phrases and words to describe your topic.

Additional Controlled List Sources

Thesaurus of ERIC Descriptors

This is an informative source. Not only does ERIC provide you with related search terms and phrases, but the editors have also provided you with a scope note (SN) that includes a usage definition for your search term or phrase as well. The scope note is a feature included only for specific searches. What the term is used for (UF), narrower terms (NT), broader terms (BT), and related terms (RT) are also included where appropriate.

For example, the search phrase "Evaluators" results in the following:

SN	Individuals who collect information according to a design and use such information as a basis for judging value.
NT	value judgment
BT	Personnel
RT	Educational researchers Evaluation Researcher

This search helps you to further explore information in your research.

In addition, the MSOE Library has other controlled lists that cover specific disciplines. These include:

Thesaurus of Scientific, Technical, and Engineering Terms
CINAHL Subject Heading List (covering nursing and health care)

Uncontrolled Lists

 

Uncontrolled lists are common to Internet search engines. An uncontrolled list has not been organized by somebody else. Therefore, when performing a keyword search on the Internet, for example, you need to be prepared with a lot of different words or phrases to identify the one topic that you are searching. You should prepare well in advance through some of the controlled methods before performing a comprehensive, worthwhile search in uncontrolled lists.