Most databases also provide ways to search for terms in the author field of an item, or the title field of an item. Most databases provide you with shortcuts to help you search for plurals and various spellings of terms. These shortcuts are called truncation or wildcard characters , sometimes also called universal characters. When these characters are used in a search statement, they make your search statements more effective in that the database will search for words containing a common word root and you don't need to type out the various spellings of a word. If given the option, consider using Subject Headings to search for items on a broad topic.
Subject headings are terms which have been designated as official representations of concepts.
Subject headings are assigned to books and articles by information professionals who have evaluated the items and decided what the subject of the item is. Some databases provide a list of subject headings from which you can choose search terms. This type of list is usually called a Thesaurus . Using subject headings will focus your search. For example , articles in the PsycINFO database about 'multiple personalities' are given the subject heading 'Dissociative Identity Disorder'.