HIST 9 - Historical Methods: Commodities (Chattopadhyaya, Spring 2025): Keywords & Subject Headings

• Think of keywords are the essential words that describe your topic. These are your own words -- they can be people, places, themes, characters, time periods, or any other concrete term.

• Keywords are your own search terms that best describe your topic alone. Avoid adverbs, conjunctions, prepositions, and any other terms that are not considered essential to your topic. 

• Using keywords allows you to combine different concepts. Each concept is separated by "AND" (trade AND british empire). All of your terms must appear in your search results.

• You can add synonyms and like terms to increase your search results. These are separated by "OR" (industry OR market OR trade OR business OR commerc*). Your search will look for any one of these terms.

• You can use the asterisk* symbol to include alternate endings to your root word:  commerc* will retrieve all records with the word commerce, commercial, commercialism, commercialization.

Subject headings are specific, predefined terms that the Library of Congress assigns to printed material. The indexers who assign subject headings are limited to using terms listed in a controlled vocabulary,  which typically does not include multi-disciplinary or complex topics. Below are examples of subject headings:

Commerce -- History -- 19th century -- Case studies

Commercial products -- History -- 19th century -- Case studies

International trade -- History 

Economic history -- 1750-1918 

Sugar -- Social aspects -- History

Sugar trade -- Social aspects -- History

Sugar plantations -- History
Tariff on sugar -- Great Britain

Sugar trade -- West Indies

Sugar trade -- East Indies

Sugar trade -- West Indies, British