If you missed class, or would like a refresher on brainstorming keywords. The video below is an overview.
The first step to identifying keywords (search terms) is having an initial topic or research question to work with. Not there yet? Spend five minutes choosing a focused topic, then come back here.
Ready?
Example:
Hint: Look for the nouns.
Example:
Hint: Think about words or phrases that have similar meanings to each idea, or that are closely related to the overall topic.
Example:
Now you can apply basic search strategies to those keywords.
Once you have identified keywords, you can apply basic search strategies to them.
The most important basic search strategy is putting quotation marks around phrases.
What do quotation marks do?
Quotation marks tell the search engine to search for that exact phrase instead of searching for the words separately.
You do not need to add quotation marks around single words.