Controlled Vocabulary vs Natural Language Searching

What is the purpose of using controlled vocabularly and how does it differ from natural language?

• The purpose of controlled vocabulary is to facilitate a mapping between words or phrases assigned by an indexer and the underlying conceptual content of the record being indexed.
• Usually the controlled vocabularly terms are referred to as descriptors, but sometimes they are also called subject headings (for our purposes we can treat these terms as synonymous).
• Natural language (or free language) are those words used by authors in the titles, identifiers, and abstracts of references.
• Using natural language terms only minimizes the likelihood that you will retrieve all relevant documents on a particular topic.
• Using a combination of natural language words and controlled vocabulary words/phrases maximizes the likelihood that you will retrieve relevant references.

Other definitions:

Controlled Vocabulary MIT

Controlled Vocabularly NJ

Natural Language NJ

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