Identifying and Using Keywords

Welcome to the Identifying Keywords tutorial.This guide will help you identify keywords you can use when searching library resources.

Keywords are words and phases that describe a concept or topic. When we type keywords into the search boxes in a database, the database returns articles that contain those keywords.

Understanding how different authors use different language to describe similar concepts will help you identify keywords.  The more keywords you can identify, the better chance you'll have of finding articles that address various aspects of a topic.

For another description of keywords, download this PDF for reference, created by Indiana University.

Synonyms!

One good way to start generating keywords is to use a thesaurus, or even a tool like a mind map or word cloud (used at the start of the guide).

Here's a listing from an online thesaurus defining the word Machiavellian (click the link). Look closely at the page.

When you come across potential keywords, write them down! Your notes will come in handy once you start building searches in our catalog and databases.

Degrees of Relatedness

Now click this link to a book titled Key Concepts in Public Relations, a reference book to which the library subscribes. From this page you can see an entry pertaining to the topic "censorship".

Look through the entry. Scanning the first couple paragraphs, see if there are keywords or phrases that you could use to search for articles on censorship.

Degrees of Relatedness

The process of identifying and gathering keywords that describe a topic is called generating a controlled vocabulary.

It is important to pay close attention to the terms that authors use. Even though they may refer the same thing, terms used in popular magazines can and will differ from terms used in scholarly journals and reference entries. 

Keywords that are related to your topic, but don't describe it exactly are just as important. They can help shape the focus of your research paper.

Other Sources

There are various places to look for keywords in other library resources.

Take a close look at the FYS Where am I Wearing LibGuide (click the link).

Notice the compiled list of keywords and phrases to help you research topics having to do with the common reader.

Abstracts & Summaries

Now take a look at this record (click the link) from the library catalog, talking about "meta-insight". Click on the View Description drop-down.

First, read the Summary field. This provides a description of the article.

Now, look in the Subjects section. This lists various subject headings that the catalog uses to describe the articles. Not only are there varying keywords, clicking the links will retrieve different records based on that subject. 

Abstracts & Summaries

Now take a look at this record (click the link). Again, click on the View Description tab. Look through the record closely, and answer the following question.

Abstracts & Summaries

Finally, here is an article citation from the Academic Search Premier database.

Notice that the database provides Subject Terms that describe the article. This database also links directly to Author-Supplied keywords. You could potentially use and combine these keywords to find more articles about your topic.

Take a moment to reflect on the differences between the subject and author supplied keywords. How will they affect your search results?

Abstracts & Summaries

So you can see that there are various ways to find similar terms, concepts, and phrases that you come across based on your research topic. Explore the library's resources, take note of important keywords, and see how they're used in our differing search platforms.

Thanks for taking this tutorial! Please stop by the library or email us at librarystaff@marian.edu if you need research help.