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The Power of Indexing

The parts of each record or citation in an index or database are searchable. These parts are called fields.

When you search by a field, the computer will "look" only in that field when it looks through all the records in the database. It will try to match your search term.

For example, an

Author Search Title Search Subject Search
looks only in the author field looks only in the title field looks only in the subject heading field

Let's take a closer look at subject searching and keyword searching. Subject searching allows you to get more "hits" and less junk in your research.

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