If select operations and joins take too long, it probably indicates that either an appropriate index does not exist or, it exists, but is not being used by the optimizer.
showplan output reports whether the table is being accessed via a table scan or index. If you think that an index should be used, but showplan reports a table scan, dbcc traceon(302) output can help you determine the reason. It displays the costing computations for all optimizing query clauses.
If there is no clause is included in dbcc traceon(302) output, there may be problems with the way the clause is written. If a clause that you think should limit the scan is included in dbcc traceon(302) output, look carefully at its costing, and that of the chosen plan reported with dbcc traceon(310).
