eric thesaurus basics

ERIC Thesaurus BasicsA Doherty Library Information Literacy

Tutorial

Goals:After viewing this tutorial, you will understand:1. What the ERIC Thesaurus is2. How to get Thesaurus terms from search

results3. How to browse the Thesaurus4. How to get library help

1. What is the ERIC Thesaurus?Professional indexers add Subjects (also

called Descriptors) to articles in the ERIC database.

Subjects describe what the article is about using standardized terms.

The Thesaurus is the list of all these Subjects, what they stand for, and how they relate to each other.

The Thesaurus is ERIC’s organizational system for all article topics. Learn the Subjects for your research topic!

We’ll start with a keyword search for classroom conditions.

Looking at the Subjects listed in these results, “Classroom Environment” seems the most relevant.

Checking “classroom environment” in this list will limit your results to articles with that Subject. That will make your results list more relevant.

In the article record, you can search the Subjects by clicking these links.

Access the Thesaurus with this link, at the top of every ERIC screen.

Search for a topic. With Relevancy Ranked searching, ERIC will suggest the most relevant Subject for your search term.

These are all terms that relate to the Subject, “Reading Comprehension,” in the Thesaurus. Reading this list might help you refine your search.

Select any checkbox and click “Add” to add the Subject term to your search.

Now you have all the articles in ERIC with “Reading Comprehension” as a Subject. Add keywords to your search, or use the Subject limiters on the left to refine your results.

Go to askus.stthom.edu to get help using library

resources

eric thesaurus basics

Education

thesaurus terms

eric thesaurus is2

search results3

search term

eric database

eric screen

relevant subject

eric withreading comprehension