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WR121 Ormandy

A Course Guide for Leslie Ormandy's WR121 students.

What are Search Keywords?

Search Keywords are mostly nouns and short phrases (2 or 3 words that make up a single idea). Keywords are not full sentences.

Write out your prompt

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?

Step 1. Write down your research topic.

Example:

Topic: How is misinformation about climate change impacted our ability to effectively address the climate crisis?

 

Step 2. Circle or highlight the most important individual ideas that make up your topic.

Hint: Look for the nouns.

Example:

Topic statement with keywords circled, including misinformation, climate change, and climate crisis

Hint: Avoid these keywords, and why: 
  • impacting, effectively, address, effect - don't use these words in your initial searches about a topic. Adjectives and words that indicate a relationship between two ideas will greatly reduce the number of search results you get. That isn't helpful right at the beginning of doing research. If you retrieve lots of search results, then feel free to add these types of words into your search queries.
  • pro, con, for, against - rather than using words that convey opinions about topics, use nouns that help you learn about your topic(s) from every angle. Examples of more inclusive nouns include outcomes, impacts, or results.
  • it, to, and, of, about - these are "filler words" that search engines and databases ignore anyway.

Step 3. Brainstorm related terms and synonyms.

Hint: Think about words or phrases that have similar meanings to each idea, or that are closely related to the overall topic.

Example:

Synonyms and related terms for keywords, including disinformation, propoganda, lies, global warming, forest fires, flooding, and sea levels.

How to identify related terms and synonyms:
  • Look online with a search like other ways to say _____.
  • Search with your main idea. Skim the results and see how that idea is talked about or referred to by others.
  • Pop your whole research question into your favorite search engine. Skim the results and see what related issues and ideas show up.
Synonyms need to make contextual sense:
  • Synonyms are words that mean the same thing. But synonyms won't always make sense in the context of your topic. 
  • Example: Climate crisis.
    • Emergency is a synonym of crisis. "Climate emergency" makes sense in the context of this research topic. 
    • Pickle is a synonym of crisis. "Climate pickle" sort of makes sense, but researchers, environmentalists, and authors don't use this term. 
DONE! You've identified keywords.

Now you can apply basic search strategies to those keywords.

Boolean Operator Video (watched in class)

What are Boolean operators?

Boolean operators are words that we use to link two or more keywords while searching. Linking your keywords with the words AND, OR, and NOT help to expand or narrow the results you get while searching.

AND

  • AND tells the catalog or database you are searching in that you are requiring both terms to be in your results. Linking two keywords with the word AND ensures that all of your search results have keyword #1 AND keyword #2.
  • Use this Boolean operator when you are comparing, contrasting, or otherwise relating two keywords!
  • Example: "peanut butter"  AND jelly 
    • Will only show me results that contain both peanut butter AND jelly, because I want both of them.

OR

  • OR tells the catalog or database you are searching in that you are okay with either keyword (or both keywords) appearing in your search results. Linking two keywords with the word OR ensure that all results with have either keyword #1 OR keyword #2 OR both.
  • Use this operator to link synonyms (words that mean the same thing). 
  • Example: jelly OR jam
    • Will return results that include jelly, jam, and jelly and jam. This is because these words are interchangeable and I'm okay with seeing results with either word.

NOT

  • NOT  tells the catalog or database you are searching in that you only want results containing one keyword, but NOT the other. Linking two keywords with the word NOT will only return results containing keyword #1 but NOT keyword #2.
  • Use this Boolean operator when you have noticed that searching for keyword #1 also returns results about keyword #2, but that is not what you are looking for.
  • Example: jelly NOT grape
    • Will return results that contain jelly, but NOT results that contain grape, because I'm not looking for information on grape jelly.

Set of three Venn diagrams showing the relationship between keywords when AND, OR, and NOT are used in a search.

Image credit: Slippery Rock University

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