Creating a Search Strategy
Search Terms
Main Concepts
Identify the main concepts in your research question by selecting nouns important to the meaning of your question. Leave out words that don’t help the search, such as adjectives, adverbs, prepositions and, usually, verbs. Nouns that you would use to tag your research question so you could find it later are likely to be its main concepts.
Finding the main concepts in a research question is a lot like finding the main idea in an essay or story. Often the main idea is in the first paragraph, but not always. Sometimes it’s in a later paragraph or even in the conclusion. The same is true with research questions—the main concepts can be at the beginning, middle, or end. Stick to the nouns and only what’s necessary, not already implied. Don’t read in concepts that are not really there. Be alert to words that may have connotations other than the concept you are interested in. For instance, if you identify depression as a main idea, be aware that the search engine won’t automatically know whether you mean depression as a psychological state or as a condition of the economy or as a weather characteristic.
Examples
Example 1: How are birds affected by wind turbines?
The main concepts are birds and wind turbines. Avoid terms like affect (except the noun) and effect as search terms, even when you’re looking for studies that report effects or effectiveness.
Example 2: Does the use of mobile technologies by teachers and students in the classroom distract from or enhance the educational experience?
Acceptable main concepts are teaching methods and mobile technology. Another possibility is mobile technologies and education.
Watch out for overly broad terms. For example, you may not want to include ‘technology’, which is much broader a concept than ‘mobile technology’.
Example 3: Is Yoga an effective intervention for epilepsy?
(yoga OR pranayama OR asanas OR “relaxation therap*” OR “relax* treat*”) AND (epilep* OR seizure* OR convuls*)
Note: You can see in this example that some of these keywords have been truncated using an asterix *
Therap*= will retrieve the words therapy, therapist, therapies
Epilep* = will retrieve epilepsy, epileptic
Example 4: Mindfulness for Smoking Cessation
(tobacco or “smoking cessation” or quit* or smok* or cigar* or tobacco* or nicotine*) AND (meditat* or mindful* or “breathing technique*”)
Note: You can see in this example that some of these keywords have been truncated using an asterix *
