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Home > Research Help > General Research Help Topics > Brainstorming Search Terms
Keywords usually give you more resources (a broader search). - When you're first starting to formulate your research question, it can be useful to brainstorm keywords that are synonymous with or related to the major concepts of your topic, as well as narrower and broader terms. Try to create a hierarchy of concepts for your research topic - it will give you more flexibility when searching different types of databases, catalogs, etc.
Subject headings, which use a standardized vocabulary, usually give you more specific resources on your topic. - Examples of subject headings are:
- Library of Congress Subject Headings: Used as the "official vocabulary" of the JHU Libraries catalog as well as many other library catalogs in the U.S.
- Medical Subject Headings: Used to describe the content of documents in the Welch Library at JHU as well as in catalogs of other medical and health sciences libraries.
- Thesaurus of Psychological Index Terms: This controlled vocabulary is used by American Psychological Association indexers to describe the content of documents in the PsycINFO database. These subject headings are sometimes called index terms or descriptors. The library has copies of the printed volume and the thesaurus is also available online, searchable from within the PsycINFO database.
Once you've brainstormed keywords for the main concepts of your research topic, you can combine them in a logical way to get the results you want when searching for articles, books, and other kinds of information. |
