Sub sections:
Keywords
After you have analysed your question, you should have a list of the main concepts. You can use these main concepts to generate a list of keywords. Keywords are the individual terms which you use on their own or in combination to search a paper or electronic resources (such as a journal indexes). By searching on keywords, you can locate the resources which refer specifically to your assignment topic.
The concept of keywords is not always easy to grasp. The simplest way to understand this idea is to use an example. Let's take the assignment topic we analysed earlier. The question was:
What is meant by venture capital in the Korean economy in the late twentieth century?
We determined that the topic words for this question were venture capital and the restricting words were in the Korean economy in the late twentieth century. By looking carefully at the topic words and restricting words, we get our keywords:
- venture capital
- Korea
- twentieth century.
Note that both venture capital and twentieth century are actually phrases. Most electronic resources will allow you to treat such phrases as a single keyword. However, if a particular resource doesn't have this facility, you can use the keywords venture and twentieth.
Identifying alternative keywords
No matter how carefully you choose your keywords, the use of just one set of keywords is rarely enough to get you the information you require. Often your choice of keywords does not quite fit the search tools you are employing to find information. As a result, you need to identify any alternatives to your keywords and add them to your list.
Consult thesauri, dictionaries, encyclopedias and other reference materials if you need clarification or inspiration. Write down any synonyms (words or phrases with a similar meaning), related words (broader or narrower), and different spellings. Don't forget that many common words have British and American spellings (behaviour/behavior). In Australia, we generally use British spellings, but not always.
Let's use our assignment question on Korean venture capital as an example of the use of a reference source to discover alternative keywords. The Oxford Dictionary of Finance and Banking gives risk capital as an alternative for venture capital. So we can add risk capital or risk to our list of keywords.
 | Further examples Identifying the main concepts and keywords. See the University College Dublin for further examples of determining keywords and alternate keywords from assignment questions. |
Controlled vocabularies
Although keywords are really useful, they are not the end of the story. Library catalogues, printed reference sources, and many searchable electronic resources also use controlled vocabularies.
These are usually lists of standard subject terms. Controlled vocabularies are called different things. Library catalogues refer to controlled vocabularies as subject headings. Electronic databases and printed reference works often call them subject descriptors or identifiers.
Most electronic indexes or databases allow you to search using your own keywords or by subject using the database's controlled vocabulary. Here is an example of a list of possible keywords for a search strategy:
- Keyword: e-commerce
- Alternative keywords: internet commerce, web commerce
- Controlled vocabulary: electronic commerce, internet marketing.
Similar strategies can be used to search printed indexes, although the use of different keywords takes longer, as you can't just type them all in at the same time on a single search screen. Instead, you need to look through the index and check which words give you the desired results.
| Medical subject headings The US National Library of Medicine uses MeSH as its controlled vocabulary. Search for the term 'bedsores' in the MeSH search box to find the correct MeSH term. |
Summary
This page examined the use of
- the importance of choosing the right keywords for your search strategy
- choosing alternative keywords
- making use of controlled vocabularies.
Now, let's go on to discuss how to combine keywords and controlled vocabulary items using a technique called Boolean logic.
 | Self-test Try these quick self-test questions to assess what you have learnt from this module. |
