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Debate Team: A Library Research Guide (Morgan-Parmett)

How to do Research

Keyword Search - Introduction

In article databases you will most often use keywords to search for articles on your topic.

Keywords : Words/terms that represent the main points/ideas of a topic -  the most significant words in a topic, book or article. Used when searching databases and library catalogs as well as search engines on the Web.

Keyword searching finds words anywhere in the database record - in the title, subject headings, author's name, etc. Use the most important (or, "key") words in your topic, to get the most relevant results.

Identify Key Concepts
Write down your research question and circle or underline the words or terms that express the main idea/s.

Develop a List of Search Terms and Related Terms

  • For each idea/concept, brainstorm a list of keywords that best describe your research question.
  • Think of synonyms, as well as broader and narrower terms for each keyword.
  • Translate the keywords in your research question into the language of the databases you use. Databases may use different words or phrases to describe the same idea/concept. There may be several useful articles that use different terminology to discuss an issue. So, it's important to keep a record of the database and the terms in that database that yielded the most useful results.

Create a Keyword Search

  • AND - narrows a search by combining two or more terms. All terms must be present.
    Example:  immigrants  and   somalia

  • OR - broadens a search by combining synonyms or alternative forms of words. Any of the words must be present. Write down any commonly used alternatives to/synonyms for your search terms and connect them with or
    Example: immigrants   or  new americans  or  refugees         

  • NOT - excludes terms from a search; narrows and focuses a search   Example: north africa  not  morocco

  • TRUNCATION (aka wildcard) - symbol used at the end of a word (or its root) to retrieve variant word endings, including plurals; makes a search more efficient by decreasing the number of searches.    Example: immigra* retrieves: immigration, immigrant, immigrants, etc.
    Many (not all) databases use the * as the truncation symbol. Check the online Help in each database to find which symbol is used.

  • Put the search together. Make your search more efficient by using the "and"   "or" connectors in one search.
    Example:

Tags: debate