Selecting Main Ideas and Keywords

You can prepare for searching by identifying the main ideas and keywords in your research question.

Computers are programmed to match strings of characters and spaces and do not often understand the natural language we use with each other. They can't guess what you mean and don't "read" subtexts. So clarify for them what you will be looking for. You should focus only on essential keywords for your topic.

"media ~~coverage of~~ 9/11"	Media cover events. Unless the media caused the event, this term is unnecessary.
~~advantages of~~ home schooling ~~over~~ public schools	Value words like "favorite", "advantage", or "better" are not useful if you need to gather evidence to help you make a decision or develop a solution.
dissertations ~~about~~ bioethics	Many databases and search engines are programmed to ignore common words that don't impact a search. These are called "stopwords" and typically include terms like "the", "from", "about", "when", etc.

Tip to remember: Many words have different meanings in different contexts. For example, Muhammad Ali was a boxer. The Boxer Rebellion took place in China. Give the search engine enough information to tell the difference.

Topics Sections

1. Topics
2. Basic Pointers
3. Generating Questions
- Brainmapping Ex.
4. Broadening Questions
5. Narrowing Questions

6. Selecting Keywords

7. Vocabulary