Q. How can I select the best search terms/keywords for my search?

What are keywords?

Keywords are words that you use to find information related to your question. They are what you type in a search box, also called "search terms".

Another way to think about it: 

Think of a keyword as a hashtag. Similar to when you use hashtags on social media (to help other people find what you've posted), when articles go into a database they are formatted so that they can be found by the major words describing the article; or the full text can be searched for any words within it.

So try to think of the best words to search that will find what you need. Pick words that have some meat to them. A good bet is to use the nouns, descriptive adjectives, or rarely verbs in your thesis. Avoid prepositions (of, with, in, etc.), articles (a, an, the), or most question words (who, how, what).

How do I find or develop keywords?

To begin developing keywords, look at your assignment and develop a topic. Once you've developed a question or a thesis statement, you can use it to develop preliminary keywords.

A sample thesis might be:

How does Starbucks exhibit social responsibility?

In this case the keywords would be "Starbucks" and "Social Responsibility"

Note: Social Responsibility is two words. When we perform our search we want to search it as one (key)word. Using quotation marks " " will transform multiple words into one whole keyword, and only find the results that have the words together in a phrase.

Social Responsibility = 2 words
"Social Responsibility" = 1 keyword

Important DOs & DON'Ts about searching in databases:

• Don't search Full sentences, or paste a whole question or assignment into a search box. 
• Do Use the most important words of your thesis (the ones with some meat) as your first keywords.
• Do Start Simple with your search. Once you realize what you want to focus on, you can make it a more complex search with additional keywords or filters.
• Don't put too many Different Concepts in the same search, unless they are all closely related. If your assignment is to find information on a few different issues, they will work better as separate searches.
• Do run more than one search to find different articles on different parts of your project. 
  For example, for an assignment that asked you to write about your company's social responsibility and also about your company's corporate culture, the best way to find helpful articles would be to do two searches:
  1) Starbucks and "social responsibility"
  2) Starbucks and "corporate culture"
   

What are ways that I can develop or expand upon my original keywords?

• Use "suggested searches"
  • Depending on which database you use, some of them provide suggested or related searches based on the keywords you initially searched on. These "related searches"  will provide alternative keywords to your initial search. 
• Brainstorm for synonyms, special "jargon", buzzwords or terminology used in the field you are studying. Or check what words your eText or class lectures used to talk about the concept you are researching.
• Look at the results of your first search and see what words the most helpful articles use to describe your topics, which can give you different - often better - keywords.
• Use a thesaurus
  • A thesaurus will provide synonyms and antonyms to the words you use. For specialized databases like healthcare and psychology, the databases themselves have special subject headings that they tag each article with, so you can find a topic even if you use different keywords than the author used.
• Use a concept map
  • Creating a mind map or concept map can be useful, especially for visual learners or people who think in pictures. These maps are used to brainstorm and visualize the relationships between ideas. 

Please Note:

It really helps a lot to do some reading on your topic before you begin searching. 

Take time to read encyclopedia entries or a textbook chapter, look at a news articles, or scan credible websites to begin developing a basic understanding of the topic. Feel free to even look at Wikipedia - it has handy resources like the references (located at the bottom of each entry). These references tell you where the authors found information and you can use these references to develop new ideas for your paper.