ENGL 127 Research Writing: Social Sciences (Bahl)

Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in Higher Education

Identify Key Words that Capture your Ideas

Identify keywords on your topic to use in library search tools.

Keywords are search terms related to your topic. 

  • Use keywords to connect ideas and narrow your focus.
    • Example: STEM AND "women of color" (instead of women of color in STEM) 
  • Use keywords to capture your core topic - and what you want to learn about it. 
    • Example: "free speech" AND laws

Here are a few tips about using keywords.

  • Put phrases in quotes:
    • Ex: "student success"
  • Keywords have synonyms and related ideas. Search for both with OR:
    • Ex: ("financial aid" OR funding OR scholarship)
  • Strategize both broader and narrower keywords to help you find relevant info and to help you find and focus your exact topic:
    • Ex: "underserved student populations" or "first generation students" or "LGBTQ+ students" or "undocumented students"
  • Combine keywords with Boolean operators "AND" and "OR" to get more relevant results.
    • Ex: Use "AND" to combine terms to narrow and focus your search (women AND STEM)
    • Ex: Use "OR" to combine terms and broaden your search (men OR masculinity).
  • Use truncation * (shift 8) to search for forms of a root word
    • Ex: educat* = educate, education, educator... 

Be on the lookout for useful words as you research and write them down! 

Look for and use Subject Terms provided by the databases to find the most relevant, precise sources of information. 

Step 2: Identify Keywords

Building Keywords

Use the worksheets below for more tips on keywords and search strategy - and to begin to map out your own!

Video: How to Use Keywords to Form a Research Strategy

Source: "From topic to search results in two minutes! " by Holman Library is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 4.0

Learn about strategizing keywords and how databases work when searching keywords.