1. A Doherty Library Information Literacy Tutorial

2. Goals:
After viewing this tutorial, you will understand:
1. What the ERIC Thesaurus is
2. How to get Thesaurus terms from search results
3. How to browse the Thesaurus
4. How to get library help

3. 1. What is the ERIC Thesaurus?
 Professional indexers add Subjects (also called
Descriptors) to articles in the ERIC database.
 Subjects describe what the article is about using
standardized terms.
 The Thesaurus is the list of all these Subjects, what
they stand for, and how they relate to each other.
The Thesaurus is ERIC’s organizational system for all
article topics. Learn the Subjects for your research
topic!

4. Goals:
After viewing this tutorial, you will understand:
1. What the ERIC Thesaurus is
2. How to get Thesaurus terms from search results
3. How to browse the Thesaurus
4. How to get library help

5. We’ll start with a keyword
search for classroom
conditions.

6. Looking at the Subjects listed in these
results, “Classroom Environment” seems the
most relevant.

7. Checking “classroom environment” in
this list will limit your results to articles
with that Subject. That will make your
results list more relevant.

8. In the article record, you can search the
Subjects by clicking these links.

9. Goals:
After viewing this tutorial, you will understand:
1. What the ERIC Thesaurus is
2. How to get Thesaurus terms from search results
3. How to browse the Thesaurus
4. How to get library help

10. Access the Thesaurus with this link, at
the top of every ERIC screen.
Search for a topic. With Relevancy
Ranked searching, ERIC will suggest the
most relevant Subject for your search
term.
These are all terms that relate to the
Subject, “Reading Comprehension,” in
the Thesaurus. Reading this list might
help you refine your search.

11. Select any checkbox and click “Add” to
add the Subject term to your search.

12. Now you have all the articles in ERIC with
“Reading Comprehension” as a Subject.
Add keywords to your search, or use the
Subject limiters on the left to refine your
results.

13. Goals:
After viewing this tutorial, you will understand:
1. What the ERIC Thesaurus is
2. How to get Thesaurus terms from search results
3. How to browse the Thesaurus
4. How to get library help

14. Go to askus.stthom.edu to get
help using library resources