 In this video, Andrew, a recent NKU nursing graduate, is going to talk to you about a technique to assist you in making your searches for research more focused. Andrew knows that sometimes it's really easy to find an article that pertains to his topic. He often uses the database Medline to search for information. He types in a keyword or two and retrieves a lot of results. Sometimes the first result is exactly what he needs, but more often this isn't the case. Instead, he finds himself retrieving so many articles that it's overwhelming. That's why Andrew wants to talk to you about the thesaurus feature available in many databases to help you focus your searches. First, let's talk about the word thesaurus. You should know what that is. You can type in a word and retrieve similar words, so a word like motivation. You could also use the word catalyst or inclination. In a database, the concept is similar. Most likely you have used keywords to search a database, so you might type in high blood pressure. A keyword search will pull up every record that contains that phrase, even if the phrase is mentioned only one time at the bottom of an article. Due to this, a keyword search sometimes results in a lot of non-relevant sources. In addition, what if an author does not use the phrase high blood pressure in his or her writing? What if they only use the word hypertension? You would miss this article completely. The thesaurus is used in databases to group similar articles together so that all the articles about hypertension, for example, are grouped together in one search. The trick is to find out what terminology the database uses. How do you know to use the word hypertension rather than high blood pressure? In many medical databases, the thesaurus is referred to as medical subject headings, or MESH. MESH consists of a long list of terms. It allows for consistency in organizing and retrieving the thousands of items added to medical databases each year. Both the databases Medline and Synol use MESH subject headings, although in Synol they're referred to as Synol headings. Now that you have an understanding of MESH, Andrew wants to explain how you can use this knowledge to your benefit. To start with, Andrew uses MESH headings to translate his keywords into subjects. In other words, he finds out what terms the database uses so that he can make his searches most effective. Here, he learns that he should use the word hypertension. He can click on the word to gather ideas for broader or narrower terms, or he can simply check the box next to the term and search the database. Now, his search results contain every source in which hypertension is a subject. From here, he might add additional keywords or add further subject headings. Let's look back at our subject heading screen so Andrew can point out a few additional tips for using this feature. For example, when you select a word to be added to your search, the database will automatically add all of these relevant terms to the search as well. But if you prefer to focus the search to something more specific, just click on the appropriate boxes. Andrew also likes to click on the major concept box. This ensures that his subject is the main topic of each source. And finally, he can also add additional subjects to a search. He always makes sure to combine his subject terms in his search by selecting the word and. This tells the database to retrieve articles about hypertension and the aged population. Let's review. Mesh headings are used in many medical resources to organize sources and help you retrieve more relevant results. Use the headings feature to translate your keywords into the appropriate terminology for the database. Keep it basic or use some of the more advanced features, like major concepts or add subheadings to further focus your search. The use of subject headings is a powerful searching feature and one that is considered advanced. Andrew still finds value in using keywords, but he has also found great value in learning the proper mesh subject headings for certain concepts.