The basis of successful library research is identifying and using the best search terms or phrases.
Before you begin searching you will need identify key concepts and terms related to your topic. These key concepts and terms are often referred to as "keywords". Creating a list of keywords related to your research question will help you in finding the resources you need in an efficient and effective manner.
Review the following examples and breakdown your research question into keywords:
| Research Question | Keywords | Tip |
| What are the causes of homelessness in America? |
Homelessness |
Don't use "soft words" like: |
| How has rising college tuition impacted students? |
College |
You may start to discover new terms and phrases: "Tuition increase" "Tuition hike" "College costs" "Graduation rates" Put phrases in quotations. |
| Do cellphones cause brain cancer? |
Cellphone |
Think of synonyms: And broad terms |
| How does the WWF gain support for programming? | WWF Programming |
Spell out acronyms to ensure accuracy: "World Wildlife Fund" (not to be confused with) "World Wrestling Federation" |
Now that you've created your list of keywords you can begin the process of building your search. In the library we use Boolean logic and truncation to build effective searches.
Follow this example (University of Minnesota Libraries) to build your search:
Before you begin searching, make sure to avoid full sentences, consider like and related terms, add a focus to your topic, and try using Boolean operators and truncation.
This worksheet should help you build your search:
Examine the metadata of articles relevant to your research to discover the subject headings and keywords assigned to these articles so that you can use them in different iterations of your research. For example, the article below lists many subject headings and medical subject headings (MeSH) that can be used in additional searches:
Determine the controlled vocabulary terms assigned to your topic: http://id.loc.gov/authorities/subjects.html
For example, the Library of Congress Subject Heading for "Native Americans" is "Indians of North America":
