Know the difference between a subject heading and a textword

• Subject headings are official standardized terms added to the citation by the indexer.
They help to identify the specific topics covered in the article and to retrieve articles on a topic which might be described by a number of different words or phrases.

For example, "cancer" is also referred to as "neoplasms," or "tumors," or "carcinoma," etc. In CINAHL the official subject heading for articles about "cancer" or "tumors" is "neoplasms," with specific types of cancers indexed to specific neoplasm terms (e.g., breast neoplasms, leukemia). In order to find all the articles on cancer, you would need to use the broad subject heading “neoplasms” and the narrower, more specific terms grouped under it.

• Textwords are the exact words that the author uses in the title or abstract.
Searching for "cancer" as a textword would retrieve articles that use the word “cancer” but would not retrieve other relevant articles that use the words “tumor” or “carcinoma” or “neoplasms” or “leukemia”. Textwords should be used when there is no good match for a subject heading.

The best way to search the database is to use the appropriate subject headings. The EBSCOHost system helps you find these subject headings by mapping your word or phrase to the most appropriate subject headings.