What are Keywords?
A version of a keyword search is the way most of us look for scholarly articles in database. It's a great approach!
Figuring out the best keywords for your research topic/question is a process. Start with one or a few words, then adjust them as you start finding sources that describe the topic. Sometimes one specific word will be enough, and sometimes you'll need several different words to describe a concept AND you will need to connect that concept to another concept. You'll shift, adapt, and expand your search keywords as you go! Your words bridge between the known and unknown topics of your research question.
What are Boolean Connectors?
These are the words that you use to tell a database how your search terms are related to each other.
| Boolean Connector | Purpose |
|---|---|
 |
ANDConnects different concepts (keywords). Narrows down the number of results. |
 |
ORConnects synonyms. Expands the number of results. |
 |
NOTExcludes a concept. Use with extreme caution (even librarians don't use this one much). |
Connect Keywords Using Boolean: Examples
It expands the number of results on the topic.
| Examples Topics of Interest | Search terms connected by OR |
|---|---|
| head injuries | head injury OR concussion OR traumatic brain injury |
| systemic racism | systemic racism OR institutional racism OR discrimination OR racial bias |
| mental health | mental health OR mental illness OR psychological health |
It narrows down the number of results.
| Example Topics of Interest | Search terms connected by AND |
|---|---|
| the mental health of college students | mental health AND college students |
| effects of social media on body image | social media AND body image |
Use with extreme caution.
| Example Topic of Interest | Search terms connected by NOT |
|---|---|
| tobacco use besides smoking | tobacco use NOT smoking |
| non-medical pollution | pollution NOT medication |
...uses the asterisk (*) to end a word at its core, allowing you to retrieve many more documents containing variations of the search term. Example: educat* will find educate, educates, education, educators, educating and more.
...is when you put quotations marks around two or more words, so that the database looks for those words in that exact order. Examples: "higher education," "public health" and "pharmaceutical industry."
...uses the database's own terms to describe what each article is about. Searching using controlled vocabularies is a great way to get at everything on a topic in a database.
Once you know you have a good article, there are a lot of useful parts to it - far beyond the content.
| Useful Part | Explanation |
|---|---|
| Keywords | Check the author-generated keywords, the database subject headings, the title, abstract and introduction for words that may be great additional/alternative search terms. You don't have to know everything about a topic before you start searching. Let what you find introduce you to the language of the field. |
| Author(s) | If they have written one article on this topic, they may have written more. Click on the authors' names to find what else they have in the database. Or use their names (individually) as a search term elsewhere. |
| Journal | They may have published other articles on your topic. Sometimes a special issue will focus on a single topic. Consider browsing or searching within a specific publication. Oftentimes you'll end up searching in the journal's website. |
| Instruments | Authors might have already created and validated an instrument (survey, tests, and measures). Consider if you can use/adapt it for your own work. Check for details in the methods section, an original citation in the reference, and/or a copy in the appendix. |
| References | Experts on this topic have gathered and evaluated these sources. Check them for potential sources for your own work. |
Check for useful tools in the database or search engine: