Expand of the Basic Index in ERIC
•?
•E GRADE 5
•
•Ref   Items   RT  Index-term
•E1     3486    3   GRADE 3
•E2     4327    3   GRADE 4
•E3     4463    3 *GRADE 5
•.
•.
•.
•E7     2561    5   GRADE 9
•E8        1            GRADEAID
•E9       44           GRADEBOOK
•E10       1           GRADEBOOK PROGRAMS
•E11      15          GRADEBOOKS
•E12       1           GRADECALC
•
•          Enter P or PAGE for more
•?
Now, the ERIC database is one of the databases that uses something called Controlled Vocabulary.  Specifically, the database uses the Thesaurus of ERIC Database Descriptors.  If you EXPAND a word or a phrase in a database and you see a column headed with an “RT” then you’ll know you’re in a database that has an online thesaurus (but, of course you scoured the DIALOG Bluesheet ahead of time and KNEW the database had a thesaurus.  Right!!??!!!)

In this example, I’m thinking of trying to focus my search to fear of mathematics in fifth grade.  I had spotted the “GRADE 1, 2, 3, …” descriptors in the earlier results in Format 8 and thought I’d expand on the phrase “GRADE 5” to see if I could use it and perhaps other terms that would be or could be considered synonymous for my purposes.