Q. What are field codes?

Field codes tell the database where to search for a term in a record.

If you don’t assign a field code, databases will usually search for a term anywhere in the article record. For example, the author field code will only search for your term in the author field.

Common ones that are used in systematic searches are the subject heading (e.g. MeSH in PubMed), text word ([tw] in PubMed, which will search mostly everything in a record) and/or Title/Abstract ([tiab] in PubMed, which will search for the term in the record’s title and abstract).