Selecting relevant items is relatively easy when you have an abstract. Abstracts summarize the most important points of the item. Based on what the abstract says, you can usually select those items that are relevant to your topic.

However, a number of indexes do not have abstracts. Therefore, you need to become proficient at estimating the potential relevance of an item based on the subject heading you used, the title of the item, and the source in which it is published.

As you consider the relevance of a particular item you have found, ask yourself:

• Is the subject heading directly relevant to your topic?
• Does the content of the title appear relevant to your topic?
• What type of publication does it appear in?
  scholarly, professional, or trade publications are more likely to contain useful and reliable information than popular publications

If the answer to the first two questions is yes, and the type of publication is appropriate for the needs of your project, then the item is probably relevant.

Copy all of the citation information into your working bibliography so that you can retrieve the item. Make sure that you find and spell out the abbreviation of the publication. Later, when you retrieve the physical item, you can decide whether or not it is truly useful for your project.