Search tools try to match the terms you search for - your keywords - with the words that appear in a book or article's title, summary, or full text. You need to select the most important keywords to use as search terms. You should never search for your entire research question or thesis statement.
Next, think of additional synonyms, broader terms, narrower terms, or similar ideas to search most effectively for the best sources. This will give you more options if your initial search does not return the results you expected. As with previous steps, brainstorming keywords can happen at any point during the research process - you may come up with some at the beginning, discover more during your exploration, and then have to try new ones when searching for scholarly articles.
This chart outlines how you might do this using the sample research question.
Sample Topic: What are the effects of a lack of access to high-speed internet on high school students in rural parts of America in the 21st century?
Concept 1: "high-speed internet" | Concept 2: "high school students" | Concept 3: rural |
broadband (a close synonym) | teenagers | agrarian |
internet (a broader term) | "high school" | country |
"fiber-optic network" (a more specific term) | graduates | Montana |
network (a related idea) | children | farmland |