3.6: Selecting Search Keywords
- Page ID
- 293140
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\(\newcommand{\avec}{\mathbf a}\) \(\newcommand{\bvec}{\mathbf b}\) \(\newcommand{\cvec}{\mathbf c}\) \(\newcommand{\dvec}{\mathbf d}\) \(\newcommand{\dtil}{\widetilde{\mathbf d}}\) \(\newcommand{\evec}{\mathbf e}\) \(\newcommand{\fvec}{\mathbf f}\) \(\newcommand{\nvec}{\mathbf n}\) \(\newcommand{\pvec}{\mathbf p}\) \(\newcommand{\qvec}{\mathbf q}\) \(\newcommand{\svec}{\mathbf s}\) \(\newcommand{\tvec}{\mathbf t}\) \(\newcommand{\uvec}{\mathbf u}\) \(\newcommand{\vvec}{\mathbf v}\) \(\newcommand{\wvec}{\mathbf w}\) \(\newcommand{\xvec}{\mathbf x}\) \(\newcommand{\yvec}{\mathbf y}\) \(\newcommand{\zvec}{\mathbf z}\) \(\newcommand{\rvec}{\mathbf r}\) \(\newcommand{\mvec}{\mathbf m}\) \(\newcommand{\zerovec}{\mathbf 0}\) \(\newcommand{\onevec}{\mathbf 1}\) \(\newcommand{\real}{\mathbb R}\) \(\newcommand{\twovec}[2]{\left[\begin{array}{r}#1 \\ #2 \end{array}\right]}\) \(\newcommand{\ctwovec}[2]{\left[\begin{array}{c}#1 \\ #2 \end{array}\right]}\) \(\newcommand{\threevec}[3]{\left[\begin{array}{r}#1 \\ #2 \\ #3 \end{array}\right]}\) \(\newcommand{\cthreevec}[3]{\left[\begin{array}{c}#1 \\ #2 \\ #3 \end{array}\right]}\) \(\newcommand{\fourvec}[4]{\left[\begin{array}{r}#1 \\ #2 \\ #3 \\ #4 \end{array}\right]}\) \(\newcommand{\cfourvec}[4]{\left[\begin{array}{c}#1 \\ #2 \\ #3 \\ #4 \end{array}\right]}\) \(\newcommand{\fivevec}[5]{\left[\begin{array}{r}#1 \\ #2 \\ #3 \\ #4 \\ #5 \\ \end{array}\right]}\) \(\newcommand{\cfivevec}[5]{\left[\begin{array}{c}#1 \\ #2 \\ #3 \\ #4 \\ #5 \\ \end{array}\right]}\) \(\newcommand{\mattwo}[4]{\left[\begin{array}{rr}#1 \amp #2 \\ #3 \amp #4 \\ \end{array}\right]}\) \(\newcommand{\laspan}[1]{\text{Span}\{#1\}}\) \(\newcommand{\bcal}{\cal B}\) \(\newcommand{\ccal}{\cal C}\) \(\newcommand{\scal}{\cal S}\) \(\newcommand{\wcal}{\cal W}\) \(\newcommand{\ecal}{\cal E}\) \(\newcommand{\coords}[2]{\left\{#1\right\}_{#2}}\) \(\newcommand{\gray}[1]{\color{gray}{#1}}\) \(\newcommand{\lgray}[1]{\color{lightgray}{#1}}\) \(\newcommand{\rank}{\operatorname{rank}}\) \(\newcommand{\row}{\text{Row}}\) \(\newcommand{\col}{\text{Col}}\) \(\renewcommand{\row}{\text{Row}}\) \(\newcommand{\nul}{\text{Nul}}\) \(\newcommand{\var}{\text{Var}}\) \(\newcommand{\corr}{\text{corr}}\) \(\newcommand{\len}[1]{\left|#1\right|}\) \(\newcommand{\bbar}{\overline{\bvec}}\) \(\newcommand{\bhat}{\widehat{\bvec}}\) \(\newcommand{\bperp}{\bvec^\perp}\) \(\newcommand{\xhat}{\widehat{\xvec}}\) \(\newcommand{\vhat}{\widehat{\vvec}}\) \(\newcommand{\uhat}{\widehat{\uvec}}\) \(\newcommand{\what}{\widehat{\wvec}}\) \(\newcommand{\Sighat}{\widehat{\Sigma}}\) \(\newcommand{\lt}{<}\) \(\newcommand{\gt}{>}\) \(\newcommand{\amp}{&}\) \(\definecolor{fillinmathshade}{gray}{0.9}\)Search keywords help you to find information about your topic. After you select research questions, you should be able to look at each of your questions and use it to identify a handful of "keywords": main topics that your question is focused on.
When deciding on search keywords, consider the following:
- What information do you want to find? What are your main topics or points?
- Is there a specific word or words that best describe one of those topics or points?
- Are there any synonyms (words that have the same or similar meaning) for your keywords?
- Are there different perspectives you need to consider? What keyword or keywords would help you find information on those perspectives?
Example Scenarios for Research and Keyword Selection
Scenario 1: Abeba has a class assignment asking her to research the history of religious warfare in Medieval Europe. Abeba looks up background information and finds related topics including the Crusades, Minor Knights' War, German Peasants' War, Thirty Years' War, Wars of the Reformation, Holy Roman Empire, and the Swiss Confederacy. She decides that is too many topics for one research paper, so she decides to focus on the Holy Roman Empire. She then looks up some background information about the Holy Roman Empire, finding that it existed from 962 AD to 1806 AD and participated in dozens of conflicts. She decides to focus on the Thirty Years' War and just briefly survey some of the other conflicts. Abeba works to identify some research questions, one of which is:
Research Question: What started the Thirty Years' War?
Essential Keywords: Thirty Years' War
Optional Keywords: Holy Roman Empire, cause, beginning, religion
Thirty Years' War is essential because it's the key topic of the research question. Without those three words, the search engine will have no idea what to look for. The optional keywords aren't all required, but you do need some of them! If you just searched "thirty years' war", you'd get far too much information. At the least, the word cause, beginning, or a similar term should be included to steer the research towards information related to what started the war. You may find that you have to swap terms out and try new ones. You may also need to include religion or Holy Roman Empire if you aren't finding enough information directly related to those topics.
Scenario 2: Mali is working on their own research and they decide to find information about the business of farming coffee. They begin by looking up background information related to the business of coffee and find several related topics: environment, profitability, distribution, staffing, genetic diversity in coffee plants, coffee plant diseases, herbicides, pesticides, and child labor. They decide that they want to focus on the finding out more about the use of child labor in coffee farming.
Research Question: Why is child labor used by some coffee farms?
Essential Keywords: Coffee, child labor
Optional Keywords: child labour, slavery
In this scenario, coffee and child labor are the two most significant topics and are required to find the needed information. The word "labour" is an alternative spelling that might need to be tried instead of labor. Additionally, slavery is a related topic that comes up as an issue on some coffee farms. Mali may need to do a search using that keyword as well.
Why Use Search Keywords?
There are a few "key" reasons to use keywords. Using keywords can:
- Improve your accuracy: Searching using too many words, whole sentences, or using the wrong words can give you poor results. A lack of accuracy makes research take longer.
- Save you time: By improving the accuracy of your searching you save yourself time.
Search engines work by taking the words that you provide and searching throughout the available text for any or all of those words. Therefore, the more words you type in, the more words the search engine searches for. These searches often include not only the titles and descriptions of sources, but also the entire text! Commonplace words like "what", "thing", or "good" can give you worse results. They can also prevent you from seeing good results. When using a library database, the results page will often omit sources that do not include one of your keywords.
Common Words to Avoid:
- General Terms:
- Thing
- Stuff
- A
- The
- For
- On
- Everything
- Anything
- Adjectives:
- Good
- Bad
- Best
Phrases
A phrase is a group of words that have meaning paired together, such as "jogging track". That identifies a very specific type of track. Phrases can often be very useful in research. Sometimes, searching for a phrase can be essential to locate exactly what you are looking for. In chapter four we will talk more about how to use quotation marks to pair keywords together in short, useful phrases.