Finding information

Identifying keywords

Regardless of which of the search tools you use, your search results are tied to the keywords you enter. Start by looking for the main ideas or concepts in your research question. These are the words or phrases that describe the topic you are investigating and will form the basis of your keyword search.

Complete the following activity to learn how to identify the main concepts.

Concepts activity

Alternative terms

There may be times when the keywords you identify from your assignment question do not provide you with relevant or useful resources, or enough information on your research topic. When this happens, expanding your search strategy can help you find what you need.

Authors may use different words to describe the same concept, so it is a good idea to identify alternative terms (also known as similar terms or synonyms) for your topic. This will broaden your search.

Let’s look back at our sample assignment topic:

For this topic there are three main concepts:

• Australia Day
• Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities
• Reconciliation

Alternative terms activity

Combining your search terms

When searching in the catalogue and databases, you can join your keywords using AND and OR.

• AND narrows your search, returning results that contain both of your terms. For example: Australia day AND reconciliation will only return articles which include both Australian day and reconciliation.

• OR broadens your search, returning results that contain either of your terms. For example: Australia Day OR January 26 will return articles which include either of these terms.

Connecting terms activity

Other search tips

You can use these tips in the Library catalogue, databases, or Google to enhance your search.