The Educational Resources Information Center (ERIC) is a database of education-related resources produced by the U.S. Department of Education. The electronic collection consists of over one million bibliographic records describing journal and non-journal literature selected by content experts and published from 1966 to the present. Each item is carefully indexed and assigned subject headings using the ERIC Thesaurus.

The ERIC Thesaurus is a great tool to help you find the most relevant citations on your topic. The thesaurus provides a standard language or set of terms to describe topics in education. These terms are like “smart words” that will help you retrieve the maximum number of relevant articles or documents.

To use the Thesaurus, click on the “Search Tools” tab, then on “Thesaurus”.

Browse for your terms using the alphabetical list (default choice), hierarchy or rotated index. The alphabetical display provides a simple alphabetical list of terms with check boxes in front of valid, preferred terms. There are no boxes beside terms that will not retrieve any results. You can click on any term to see its full entry and find preferred search terms.

If you choose the hierarchy display, you will get a list of all terms that have a relationship with the found term (which might be slightly different than what you entered) plus any explanatory notes.

If you choose the rotated index, you will get a display of all terms that contain the single found word, plus any related terms. The rotated index is nice for locating terms that are deeper in a search phrase than the first word (For example, a search on the word “child” in the rotated index will yield these results among many others: caregiver child relationship, child abuse, and school age child care). It is important to remember to only type a single word if you use this choice.

Check the boxes next to as many terms as you wish to search at one time. Then combine them using OR to search all the checked items.

By selecting terms from the Thesaurus, when you click the Search button, you are limiting your search to the Descriptors field in the database. This is a good way to make sure the terms you search are actually the subjects of records that are retrieved.

Terms from the ERIC Thesaurus also appear as links on the right side of each record of your results list under the “Descriptors” heading. The descriptor(s) you used to retrieve the item will appear in bold. To expand your search, you can click on any descriptor term, and a new search will be done for that term. You can also do this by checking the box in front of descriptor terms when you are looking at the full record for an item (example follows), then clicking the “Go” button.



If you need more help using the thesaurus, please contact the Keffer Library reference desk at 651-962-4664 or contact Maura Smyth (mtsmyth@stthomas.edu, 651-962-4661) or Donna Nix (denix@stthomas.edu, 651-962-4662). Walk-in reference service or individual consultations are available.

DN/jph 9/2005