How do I use keywords in a search?

Coming up with effective search terms can be a hurdle, especially for more complex research questions. It’s important to understand that databases don’t process information like people do, so phrases using everyday speech may be unproductive and could actually limit your search results. Instead, you will want to break your research questions into key concepts, find possible synonyms, and use database techniques like near searching and subject searching.  

Example Research Question: How are women represented in the movie hunger games? 

If we were to break this research question into key concepts and search terms, we would remove unnecessary terms that are not key to your topic. Nouns are preferred over verbs, and broad conceptual terms like representation, impact, effect, influence, relevance, role, advantage, etc. should also be avoided. Instead, name the representation, impact, effect, etc.

From our research question, we have pulled three terms “women,” “movie,” and “hunger games.”

Then, we can look for synonyms, subject/keyword terms, and related terms of our key concepts. You may want to consider what terms experts in the field might use. You can find subject/keyword terms by conducting a few preliminary searches to see what relevant subject terms and keyword headings are listed.

Example list of Synonyms, Subject./Keyword Terms, and Related terms

Once you have your keywords, you can start playing around with search techniques to narrow, broaden, and improve the relevancy of searches.