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POSC 101 (Surak)

Introduction to Political Science, designed specifically to support sections taught by Dr. Surak

Keyword Exercise

Research Question: "How does media affect voting in young people?"

The first step is to identify the most important parts of the question, the keywords, that get to the base of what we what to research.

Keywords:   media  |  voting  |  young people

Now we need to brainstorm some of the different ways we can think about these key concepts. Those alternate keywords can be synonyms, broader, or more narrow terms.

For example:

Media might generate a list like: Voting might generate a list like:

And young people might generate a list like this:
  • television
    • news
    • talk shows
  • internet
  • social media
    • twitter
    • facebook
    • instagram
  • social networking
  • campaigns
  • political campaigns
    • advertisement
  • election
  • vote
  • civic engagement
  • polls
  • students
    • college students
    • university students
    • undergraduates
    • high school students
  • youth
  • young adults
  • millennials 
  • 18-24 years old

Television is one type of media, and a talk show is one type of television program; the terms get more narrow. Civic engagement is a broader category under which voting might rest. And youth is just another way of saying young people. All of these are legitimate ways of coming up with alternate keywords.

You never know which one will be best for a particular database or website until you start looking! What works well in one, might not go over very well in another.

You can use the worksheet below to explore options for your own topic.