Always gather background information on a topic before diving into doing research. It supplies context information and gives you a better understanding of a topic. It is a great way to start developing keywords for better search results.
Background information on a topic can be gathered from a variety of sources, including textbooks, books, reference materials like encyclopedias, and reputable websites.
You may have several topic ideas, and a mind map is a great way to organize your early ideas ranging from your big broad topic to more specific sub-topics or sub-categories stemming from the original.
KEYWORDS are words or phrases that will bring back useful results in search engines and databases. Develop keywords from your background research and concept map.
Ask these questions:
Look at your course materials, such as your syllabus, an assignment sheet, class readings, or class notes to identify relevant keywords.
You may also be able to Google your question examine the search results. Are there particular websites or articles that show up? You might find that the first search result is a Wikipedia page about your topic. While you might not be able to use it as a source in your bibliography, Wikipedia articles can often reveal useful keywords to use in your search.
For art, keywords can include:
When to use keywords:
As you create keywords, you should also begin piecing together those keywords to create "search strings," or search strategies. You can certainly plug these keywords into the catalog and databases to see what you can find on your narrow topic, or you can elevate and expand your searching by using boolean operators, nested searches and truncation.