LSU Libraries
The Research Process

Once you have stated your topic as a question, you need to identify the main concepts in the question. Do this by picking out the significant terms in your question.:

Personal Example: Academic Example : When you actually start looking for information these will be the keywords or "terms" you will use in your searches. Once you have these terms think of any synonyms and related terms you might use:

Personal Example:
terms car(s) cost safety mileage
related
terms
automobile(s) price   economy
  expense    

Academic Example :
terms violence media child(ren) behavior
related
terms
brutality broadcast(ing) youth conduct
    juvenile(s)  
    adolescent(s)  


Using connecting words "and" and "or" and truncation symbols you can construct a search statement which will return the best possible results. In this case something like:

Personal Example:
(car* or automobile*) and (cost or price or expense) and safety and (mileage or economy)

Academic Example :
(violence or brutality) and (media or broadcast*) and (child* or youth or juvenile* or adolescent*) and (mileage or economy)

For more information on using search terms and building search statements, see the Searching Techniques and Strategies Tutorial.

          



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