Some databases organize the Result List into Facets by source type, subjects, authors, or journals. This feature, also known as clustering, is helpful if you want to discover the major subject groups for your topic without having to browse multiple pages of results, or checking individual articles to see if they are relevant.
From either Basic or Advanced Search, enter your search terms in the Find field and click Search. The Result List that is displayed will have a list of facets in the left-hand column.
Hide or show the different facets by clicking the control arrows near the top of each facet. You can narrow by source type, subject, journal, and more. This feature is helpful if you want to discover the major subject groups for your topic without having to browse multiple pages of results, or checking individual articles to see if they are relevant.
If enabled by your administrator, hit counts are available indicating the number of results for each facet. Facets are displayed by hit count in descending order.
To use facets:
A new Result List, limited to the chosen term or terms is displayed and the selected terms are added to the Current Search box.
Select a term by clicking the checkbox in a facet.
Your result list is updated and the term appears in the Current Search box.
Click the Show More link to select multiple terms at once, or to view all available terms.
Mark the checkboxes for the facet terms you would like to apply and Click Update.
Note: You can select to re-sort facet terms by name or hit count by clicking the Name or Hit Count links at the top of the facet window. You can select all terms using the checkbox to the left of the Name link.
Notes:
When you select a single heading (Subject, Journal, Author, etc.) from a facet on the result list, the heading is added to the search terms with the AND operator, limiting results to only those related to the search terms and subject heading.
When you select multiple headings from the facet window before clicking the Update button, the headings are added to the search terms with the OR operator to prevent the user from receiving zero results.
The Current Search box is located at the top of the left column and keeps track of your entire search by displaying:
Each limiter, expander, source type, and/or subject term you selected is added to Current Search with an 'x' icon. Clicking on the icon will remove the corresponding term from the search and a new result list will be displayed.
Clicking on a hyperlinked item will execute a search for only that term.
From EBSCO support.