Research in a nutshell - NNPS: Keywords
Using Keywords
Thanks to our friends at Kimbel Library at Coastal Carolina University for creating this great video on selecting the right number of keywords to use in a search!
Developing Searches
For this assignment, you need to use keywords to look for articles on specific topics. This is good practice--you can use your time most efficiently by creating good searches to enter into databases. Most databases work best ify ou enter keywords, rather than entire sentences or questions, into the database.
Try our new Search Strategy Builder for an even easier way to build keyword searches!
For example, if your research question was:
Is melatonin treatment effective for children with insomnia?
Then you might create a search that looks something like this:
"melatonin treatment" AND children AND insomnia
If you don't find anything with that search, then you may want to think of adding some synonyms to your search:
"melatonin treatment" AND (children OR youth OR baby) AND (insomnia OR sleep OR sleep disorders)
Read more about developing search strategies here: http://info-skills.lib.vt.edu/developing_search/index.html
Search strategy builder
Search strategy builder
The Search Strategy Builder is a tool designed to teach you how to create a search string using Boolean logic. While it is not a database and is not designed to input a search, you should be able to cut and paste the results into the standard database search boxes.
Write out your research question or topic thesis as a sentence.
Search Strategy Builder created by University of Arizona Libraries and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.