Research - Getting Started

You are ready to begin you first search!  While there are many options you may use to search for resources (title, subject, author, etc.) the most commonly used method is the keyword search.

Keyword

also called search term

a word that represents a main idea of your research topic 

When searching on a large search engine like Google, you are able to put anything from a couple of general terms to a whole sentence in the search bar and return a large number of results.  However, doing the same thing in the library databases will return either no results, or results that do not work for your assignment.  This is because the library databases are looking for exact keywords. If you do not use the correct keywords while using the library databases, you will not find the resources you need for your assignment.

Therefore, before you search, it is very important to:

• Identify your topic's main ideas
• Identify several similar words that could also be used to describe your topic's main ideas
• Spell out any abbreviations and acronyms
  • NASA becomes National Aeronautics and Space Administration
  • Corp. becomes Corporation

It is very unusual for a first set of keywords to return the needed resources for an assignment.  So, if you do not see what you need right away, continue to use different but similar keyword combinations until you find what you need.  Do not give up!

Keywords. Authored by: Sukhjinder License: CC0