Moving from Questions to Keywords

Moving from questions→ to keywords →to finding information Once you have explored (read broadly around, or thought about the planning process) your subject/topic you will have identified the areas you want to research and address. It can be helpful to frame your research topic as questions, and each question should be treated as a separate search for information. What you need to do Worked Example Research question:  Start by identifying the keywords. From your questions, identify the concepts/ keywords describe the ideas and topics which must be present in your search statement in order to get relevant search results   Then list synonyms /alternative spelling for the keywords. This will provide you with some additional keywords you can use during searching. One way of doing this is to use a table that lists the key words and alternatives. Think of the limits you want to impose. This can include time-line, geography, language and source type, etc. “What is the impact of Information Literacy in Higher Education?” What is the impact of Information Literacy in Higher Education? Keyword Alternative Alternative Alternative Impact effect influence indication Information Literacy Information skills Searching skills Higher Education University Tertiary Education HE Geographical: the UK Time line: in the last 30 years – i.e. you are searching for information or research available say post 1997. Language: English Some searching conventions you need to know before you start searching – these include 1  Using universal search conventions Search conventions allow greater control over how you convey your requirements to a search / finding tool or search engine so that it finds and retrieves the information you require. Search tools are robotic in nature and require you to instruct them on how to search; otherwise they fall back on their default programmed position so you need to be able to communicate with them using their own language. The good news is that this is relatively simple and straight forward. All you need is to become familiar with some universal search conventions and what they convey to the search tool/engine. Once you master them you can use them on most search engines whether they are part of a database, journal search platform, or an internet search engine such as Google. Boolean operators (AND, OR, NOT) These are some of the most important search conventions. Boolean operators are used to combine keywords and instruct the search tool/engine on how to search and retrieve the information you require. To do this you need to understand how they works. So using the table from the earlier worked example your search statement might look like this Keyword Alternative Alternative Alternative Impact AND Information literacy AND higher education Impact effect influence indication Information Literacy Information skills Searching skills University Tertiary Education Or (Impact OR influence) AND (information literacy OR information skills) AND (higher education OR university) Note sometimes search engines normally require that you use brackets or inverted commas around the keywords you are combining using the Boolean operator OR. This is referred to as nesting. If you are unsure whether to use them check the help tab on the resource you are using for searching guides (Impact OR influence) AND (information literacy OR information skills) AND higher education OR university Higher Education HE Do not be put off by this as most search tools have advanced search menus that you fill in with your keywords - they guide you through the Boolean operators. If you have worked out in advance what Boolean operators you want to use, filling in the menu is relatively easy. 2 The following is an example of what expressions are used on menus and their Boolean equivalent Some more search conventions you might want to know about    Using brackets around keywords and concepts. This is also known as nesting and is used to build a search with a combination of Boolean operators. E.g. (cat OR feline) AND dog Phrase searching - put your phrases between quotation marks - “experiential learning ” Use refining and limiting options - by date (year or time line e.g. the last 5 years or specific dates)  Wildcards – This is usually the question mark symbol   ?. It replaces a letter within a word e.g. wom?n will retrieve “woman” and “women”. Truncation– This is usually the symbol asterisk *. You can use at the end of a search term. This allows you to search for all possible endings e.g. Learn * will find learns, learning, learned… Note - The symbols used for wildcards and truncation vary between different databases and search tools. You should check the help pages to see what they support before starting your search For More information on searching and troubleshooting – consult the hand out titled “Some things you need to know about searching” in the Finding information section 3