Need Help?
Identify Keywords
When using library resources, it's usually best to pick out the main concepts of your topic and search by using these (referred to as keywords), instead of a sentence or question. Consider which parts of your topic are essential, and use those.
When looking for keywords, focus on nouns and noun phrases; these are more effective search terms. Ignore verbs and words like influenced, affected, etc. You may need to change some keywords to become nouns.
The main keywords for the following research topics are bolded and in purple:
- What is the Electoral College?
- Are tax cuts on the wealthy effective? [effectiveness]
- Texting while driving should be banned. [ban]
You can combine your essential keywords with the word AND. AND means that all these words must be present in your search results.
- Electoral College
- tax cuts AND wealthy AND effectiveness
- Texting while driving AND ban
To keep phrases (two or more words) together, place them in quotation marks: "tax breaks".
You should also try to brainstorm other words that are similar to your keywords. For example, if you were researching if college athletes should be paid, instead of the word paid you could use words like salary and compensation.
Subjects -- A Better Way to Search
Sometimes your topic can be expressed in many different ways. Which is the right way? There are also ways that experts in a field phrase a term that are different than common usage. Using controlled vocabulary can help you retrieve better search results. This is like a hashtag for a topic, and will let you find the scholarly conversation available. By using the official terms, you will find more relevant results.
Controlled vocabulary is frequently referred to as subjects or subject headings. You can scan library catalog and database results for sources that look relevant and see which subjects are listed.
Adding Keywords to Search Tools
Most of the library search tools will have two types of search screens: a basic search screen and an advanced search screen.
Basic search screens typically have one search box, and may have a drop-down box next to it. Type your keywords in the box and separate each one with the word AND. This tells the search tool to look for all these words. You may use quotation marks to keep a phrase together.
If you would like to tell the search tool where to look for your search terms, change the drop-down box. Common options are title, author, and subject. When you change the box to one of these options, the search tool will only look for the words you entered in those areas. You do not need to change the drop-down box. If you do not change the drop-down box, your search terms will be looked for throughout the entire record (that is, the information describing each result). This is also how you can limit your search to subjects for better results.
Most search tools will have an advanced search option. Advanced search has multiple search boxes, with each box having its own drop-down. This allows you to search for different keywords in different areas. For instance, you can search for one of your keywords in the title and another in the author field. Many of the library databases have the advanced search as the default.
You do not have to fill each search box, and you do not need to change each drop-down. If you do not change the drop-down box, your search terms will be looked for throughout the entire record (that is, the information describing each result).