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John Bishara
PubMed
Depth of Indexing

1. Example
Select and cite an exemplar indexing (documentary) unit.
Nasogastric aspiration/lavage in patients with gastrointestinal bleeding: a review of the
evidence. [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29098897]
Identify all top level headings associated with this documentary unit in your
database (to the extent possible or practical).
1) Analytical, Diagnostic and Therapeutic Techniques, and Equipment [E] / Diagnosis
[E]
2) Diseases [C]
For each top level heading, list the complete index term (include about five example
subheadings from the displayed index(es).
1) Clinical Decision-Making [E01.055]
Delayed Diagnosis [E01.110]
Diagnosis, Computer-Assisted [E01.158]
Diagnosis, Differential [E01.171]
Diagnosis, Dual (Psychiatry) [E01.190]
2) Bacterial Infections and Mycoses [C01]
Virus Diseases [C02]
Parasitic Diseases [C03]
Neoplasms [C04]
Musculoskeletal Diseases [C05]
If your index provides access via full-text searching (i.e., you can search for any
word that occurs in one or more documentary units), list a few of the words users
might want to search for to find this documentary unit.
Keywords: diagnosis; endoscopy; gastrointestinal bleeding; nasogastric aspiration;
nasogastric lavage; prognosis

Not listed as keywords but still usable: pre-endoscopic, erythromycin infusion, lavage,
nasogastric incubation, PRISMA guidelines

2. Exhaustivity
How large is the indexing vocabulary of the index?
Over 300 terms.
Explain how you figured this out. If you had to guess, explain the reasoning behind
your guesses.
It's all listed under the MeSH tree that I found: https://meshb.nlm.nih.gov/treeView
Although there wasn't a way to efficiently count each and every term under every branch
of that tree, I multiplied the total number of main headings with an average amount of
subheadings.
About how many index terms are assigned on average to each documentary unit?
About five.
 2

Explain how you figured this out. If you had to guess, explain the reasoning behind
your guesses.
I have a lot of experience looking at PubMed pages, so I feel qualified to guess, and in
my experience it's always about five terms.
Does the number of index terms assigned to each documentary unit constitute high
or low exhaustivity?
I would say high exhaustivity, because although there are about five or so terms to a unit,
the units themselves tend to be highly focused on a particular piece of anatomy, or a
particular disease, so it only takes a handful of terms to typically serve as exhaustive.
3. Thematic Specificity
Discuss the thematic specificity of the index.
It covers many aspects of medicine and medical practice, including not just anatomy but
concepts around diagnosis, human groups, information science, technology and
agriculture, and geography.
Provide some illustrative examples of index terms that are typical in their thematic
specificity.
I'm honestly not sure how a term can be atypical in thematic specifity unless a mistake
was made, but:
Anatomy [A]; Head [A01.456]; Ear [A01.456.313]/Face [A01.456.505]/Scalp
[A01.456.810]/Skull Base [A01.456.830]
4. Critique
Assess the appropriateness of the depth of indexing in terms of:
o the type of documents being indexed
o the information needs of the intended audience
o the time/effort required to produce the index.
I believe that the depth of indexing is sufficiently deep enough to avoid redundancies,
without being so shallow that most terms pertinent to the medical field wouldn't be excluded.
The ability to search for words outside the MeSH list allows for the search of new terms, but the
MeSH list helps people looking through established terminology in PubMed quite well,
minimizing the time required (since writers are required to use the terms of the MeSH tree when
submitting to PubMed, so anyone using terms from MeSH is highly likely to find results) and
thus making it highly efficient.