Identify Keywords
To identify keywords, first start by writing out your research statement or question. Then follow these steps:
- Start by writing your research question, or thesis statement.
- Underline or circle the two or three most important terms that represent your topic.
- Example: Are social media users concerned about their personal privacy?
- Eliminate pronouns, and consider verbs. If verbs add context to your other keywords, you can include verbs as keywords.
- NOTE: You can always add in search terms later, so try starting with fewer terms.
- Use your initial keywords to think of synonyms. You can use synonyms as additional search terms.
- Example synonyms: concern, worry
Searching with keywords
Example search: ("Social Media" OR "social network") AND (privacy OR "personal privacy") AND (concern OR worry)
· As you search you may find more -or better- keywords & synonyms to use, or different spellings... play around with keywords and different combinations to see what is most useful
· Use AND to link different concepts and keywords together
· Use OR to group synonyms, or similar concepts together in parentheses
· Use quotation marks to search for specific phrases, or key words with two or more words