Start With Your Keywords
Identifying the Main Concepts
We’ve done a lot of prep work so far, and we have just a bit more to do before we actually start searching for resources in a few more chapters. The last thing we need to add to our search plan is keywords, or the words we search that represent the main concepts of our research topic.
Though many people type full questions word-for-word into search tools, some of the words in your research topic are irrelevant when it comes to finding information sources. Including irrelevant words in your keywords can really mess with your results, you might not get a comprehensive view of what sources are out there or you could have too many irrelevant sources clouding your result list.
So how do you identify those main concepts? Well for starters let’s eliminate some easy words that will never be part of the main concept: the, of, a, to, is, affect, pro, con, impact, what, why, when, how, and are. All those words can go.
Next, look for nouns in your topic that would be essential if you were describing your topic to someone else. I call this part Hulkspeak, because you want to think of the most basic ways of referring to your topic with no frills or unnecessary words.
Let’s look at an example of how we eliminate unnecessary words then highlight the main concepts:
Research topic: How can divorce affect a student’s GPA in high school?
How can divorce affect a student’s GPA in high school?
Eliminating the unnecessary words first left us with only main concepts, that was easy! If you search divorce, student, GPA, and high school and all your results have all those words, you’ll find some really relevant sources.
Evolution of Keywords
Like most things with research, you should get comfortable with change. The main concepts you identify at the beginning of your research process will evolve as you search. You’ll take a look at your results and, if they aren’t good enough, you’ll need to edit your keywords and search again—often multiple times. Most of the time, the first keywords we try are not the best, even though our search tool gives us results. It pays to search further for the sources that will help you the most. Be picky.
My advice to you is to start your keywords as broad as possible, review your results, and then start making adjustments. It can be helpful as you search to start listing any alternative or related keywords or phrases that you might want to incorporate into your search. You could return to your presearch to see what terms and phrases were used. You could also try using a thesaurus to find synonyms. Some databases will also list “related terms,” which can be helpful for modifying your search. The better you know your topic, the better your keywords will be, so be prepared to do multiple searches before finding the “right” keywords.
Combining Keywords
OK, so now you’ve found the main concepts and listed several keywords to describe these concepts (e.g., synonyms, narrower terms, broader terms