Sociology 100: Sociological Theory (Van Natta)

Databases use controlled vocabulary to index or tag articles and books. Often referred to as Subject Headings, these terms describe the main topics or concepts presented in the article or book.

For example in Sociological Abstracts (ProQuest) any article about teenagers, young adults, juveniles, youth, etc., will be tagged with the Subject Heading Adolescents.

Some databases have tools to help you find the controlled vocabulary terms. These terms usually include definitions.  For example -->

• Thesaurus in ProQuest databases.
• MeSH (Medical Subject Headings) in PubMed.

Many databases use controlled vocabulary (standardized descriptions) to describe resources.  Constructing your search string with a combination of keywords and controlled vocabulary can be the most effective way to search a database. 

Subject Headings in UC Library Search are an example of controlled vocabulary. 

• When you find an item of interest, see what Subject Headings are used to describe the resource and try *new* searches using those headings.  

For example:

Pierce, Clayton. 2017. “W.E.B. Du Bois and Caste Education: Racial Capitalist Schooling From Reconstruction to Jim Crow.” American Educational Research Journal 54(1_suppl):23S–47S. doi: 10.3102/0002831216677796.

is assigned the following Subject Headings: 

• biopolitics
• Caste
• Du Bois, W E B (1868-1963)
• Education
• Educational research
• race/class and inequality
• racial capitalism
• Racism
• W.E.B. Du Bois and education
• White supremacy and education
• Writers

Use an article's citations trails to find more information related to your research. This video will show you how to locate an article's citation trails in Web of Science, Google Scholar, and UC Library Search. (3 min.)

Learn more at the research guide linked below: