A controlled vocabulary is a list of terms officially used in a specific discipline or setting. It can make searching easier since the same term will be used throughout the database to describe the same concept. Professional Development, in the example below, is a common phrase but could be interpreted in different ways by different disciplines of study. By using a database's Subject Headings or Thesaurus, you can identify which term is the "official" term that will be used across the resource and you will be able to use it to find all of the relevant items in the database
The APA Thesaurus of Psychological Index Terms is the subject index for the PsycArticles database available from the BQ Library. You can search PsycArticles along with other psychology-related databases using the BQ Library Psychology Search or you can search PsycArticles on it's own.
You can access a complete list and search for specific index terms from the blue menu bar at the top of the page in EBSCOhost under Subjects when you are search multiple databases at once.
When browsing the thesaurus you can search to find terms that begin the same as the term you are using, terms that contain words you are browsing, or relevancy ranked.​
You can find out more about a term by clicking on it.
Looking at a specific term in the index, you can find out a lot more about it. Potential confusion about what the term means is cleared up in the Scope Note. You are also able to get a clearer idea of how the term fits into the disincline by any Broader or Narrower Terms listed. While the Related Terms are not quite synonyms of the terms but are different terms that are related in a significant way.
Once you have determined the best terms for your search you can use them to search in one of two ways.
The default search for the BQ Library Search and the APA PyscArticles databases is a keyword search. This search looks at all of the information included an article and your results will include everything that includes the term, whether or not the article is relevant to your needs. You can start with this type of search by putting the subject term in the basic search box.
Click on one of the results to see the article’s citation. You can then scroll down until you see the subject headings.
You can then click on the corresponding subject heading and EBSCOhost will preform a search for items with the subject heading.
You can skip so of those extra steps by performing a Subject Search by switching from the Basic Search option to the Advanced Search.