Searching by SUBJECT HEADING

Although searching by keyword is the most convenient way to begin finding materials on your topic, it can sometimes retrieve irrelvant results along with useful ones.  Another method of searching the library catalog (and MOBIUS) is by SUBJECT.  Every item in a library catalog has at least one subject heading assigned to it.  These are carefully chosen subject areas that the work has been determined to fall under.  When you have a list of results from a keyword search, take a look at some of the subject headings attached to works that look relevant to you.  This can facilitate a more "focused" search and help eliminate those works that are less relevant or not related to your topic at all.

Example:   In the library catalog, try a keyword search for creation AND debates

The first record, Creation-Evolution Debates, looks very relevant.
The second record, The Ambivalence of Creation: Debates Concerning
 Innovation and Artifice in Early China, is not related to the topic we would
be covering in the course, Science and Religion.  Neither are records 3, 4, or 5!
But if we return to the first work and examine its subject headings, we find several subject headings that can lead us in a better direction:

Creationism
Bible and evolution
Evolution — Religious aspects — Christianity
Evolution (Biology) — Religious aspects — Christianity

And even if we are not  looking at evolution and christianity specifically, we can still search under the shorter subject heading, Evolution — Religious aspects.

Here are some additional subject headings that would be useful for PHRE 387.  Just select  'Subject Heading'  from the drop-down menu in the library catalog (middle of library home page) and type in the heading:

Religion and Science
Natural Theology
Bible and Science
Faith and Reason
Faith and Reason–Christianity
Science–Philosophy
Religion–Philosophy