Background and purpose: Author-assigned keywords at the end of the abstracts in scientific articles are the words most relevant to the content of the article. They are the main sources for indexing and storing the articles in databases, and help to retrieve related articles. Therefore, any mistake or ambiguity in keywords lead to disruption of both data storage and retrieval processes. This study aimed at investigating the types of errors made in author-assigned keywords of articles in the field of medical education.
Materials and methods: In this descriptive research, the keywords in 13 journals publishing articles in medical education were studied. Out of 3194 articles reviewed, 10965 entries were extracted. The English and Persian keywords were compared using Excel.
Results: In the journals studied, the mistakes associated with keywords were made mainly on not writing the equivalent keywords for English keywords and Persian keywords (70.31%).
Conclusion: According to current study, the authors, reviewers, and editors are suggested to pay more attention on keywords to prevent disturbance in storing and retrieving the articles.
 

Keywords: scientific article, indexing, data storage, data retrieval, medical education

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