COE 237 | Gender & Communication

Search terms--or keywords--are important words/concepts found in your research question or thesis--you'll use these keywords to find information on your topic.

A quick and dirty way to pull keywords from a research question/thesis is to choose the most important nouns; most other words are irrelevant--particularly articles, and words such as effect or impact.

Using keywords to search will always retrieve more results than phrases or sentences.

Think of synonyms, too--synonyms will always expand the number of results you retrieve (see Search Strategies).

Image source:  Producer.  CC BY-SA 3.0. Wikimedia Commons

Keywords have a profound impact on search results. Using the right words will speed up the research process, while the wrong ones can bring to it to a painfully screeching halt.

If the keywords you initially choose do not give good results, try others on your list, try search strategies, or ask a librarian for help.

Use the chart above to document keywords related to your topic.  Keep it by your side when you start your research.

Before you begin searching for information, you must identify keywords related to your topic. Find keywords:

• within your research question or thesis
• in encyclopedias used in background research
• in bibliographies found at the end of books and articles

• in a thesaurus (or in Word's thesaurus under the Review tab)
• by asking a librarian

Image source:  Evan-Amos.  Public Domain.  Wikimedia Commons.