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How To - Do Basic Searches in WorldCat Discovery

Narrow or broaden

Try to think of similar, broader, and narrower ideas or terms

As an example:

  • Concept: men's magazines
    Broader ideas / terms: media
    Narrower ideas / terms: advertising in men's magazines, feature stories in men's magazines

  • Concept: attitudes
    Similar ideas / terms: beliefs, approaches, opinions

  • Concept: romantic relationships
    Similar ideas / terms: dating
    Broader ideas / terms: relationships
    Narrower ideas / terms: heterosexual romantic relationships, homosexual romantic relationships, bisexual romantic relationships

Tip: You can often find these related terms by looking at the subjects associated with the article or book, and in most of our databases, you can click on the subjects to see other results with that subject. In Worldcat Discovery (the search service on the library's home page), you can scroll down to see the list of subjects (see example image below).