After completing this section, you will be able to develop a research strategy using keywords, synonyms, and related terms to retrieve information related to your topic.
Your concept map or topic worksheet should have helped you to identify key terms that you can use to search for information that relates to your topic. In the previous section, you learned how to identify and select different types of resources, and you practiced selecting a database appropriate to your topic.
Most databases allow you to combine multiple terms to find the articles that most closely match your specific topic. By combining terms in your search, you get fewer results, but your search results will be more relevant to your topic.
Remember, you should begin by writing your topic as a research question. For example,
How does video game violence affect children?
Next, you should identify the key concepts in your research question.
How does violence in video games affect children?
Because authors do not always use the same terms to describe specific concepts, it is helpful to think of some synonyms for these terms before you begin to search:
| Concept 1 | Concept 2 | Concept 3 |
| violence | video games | children |
| violent | computer games | child |
| youth |
The Search Strategy Builder is a tool designed to teach you how to create a search string using Boolean logic. While it is not a database and is not designed to input a search, you should be able to cut and paste the results into most databases’ search boxes.
Brainstorm keywords related to your topic, then enter your search statement here. For example: (violence or violent) and (video games or computer games) and (children or child)
The Search Strategy Builder was developed by the University of Arizona Libraries(CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 US).