When you're looking to find resources on a specific topic in any type of online search engine, whether it be cross search, google, or the Encyclopedia of American Literature, you're often going to use keywords to pull up results.
Keywords, also commonly called search terms, are words or short phrases derived from your research topic that you can enter into search engines . They represent the main concepts of your research topic and are the words used in everyday life to describe the topic. Without the right keywords, you may have difficulty finding the articles that you need.
Selecting keywords is a multi-step process that involves:
It is important to remember that research is a touch and go type of process- your first search and your fourth search may not yield the best results, but with some creative thinking and tweaking of your search parameters your third and sixth search will bring in great resources!
Research Topic: J.R.R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings is his own attempt to create an original heroic romance after his translations of works like Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, The Fall of Arthur, and Beowulf.
From here, I will generate some words and phrases related to my topic to try and find resources.
Beginning Keyword Brainstorm: Heroic Romance, Tolkien, Tolkien Translations, Fantasy, Lord of the Rings, genre.
From this list, I would try these search combinations:
"Heroic Romance" and Tolkien
"Tolkien Translations"
Tolkien and Fantasy
"Lord of the Rings" and Genre
Lets say these don't work very well for me. Now I think of synonyms and alternate phrases.
Second Brainstorm: Beowulf, Arthurian Legend, History, Epic, poetry, epic poetry
Tolkien and Beowulf
Tolkien and "Arthurian Legend"
Tolkien and History
"Lord of the Rings" and History
"Lord of the rings" and "Arthurian Legend"
When searching in a database or search engine, what you put in between two keywords or phrases can greatly impact the kind of results you get. We use Boolean Operators to narrow down results with the inclusion of certain search factors or even by limiting them. The three boolean operators are:
And - links two or more keywords together so that the system searches for them together.
ex: "English Literature" and "Chaucer"
Or - Allows you to search for results including one or both of the keywords, rather than linking them together.
ex: "English Literature" or "British Literature"
Not - Allows you to narrow your search results by excluding certain results.
ex: "English Literature" not "Irish Literature"