Subject keywords
It will facilitate the research process if you spend time listing your
subject keywords. When doing this you need to consider the following:
- Spelling variants, eg behaviour / behavior
- Variations of a root word, eg feminism / feminist / feminine
- Single and plural versions of words
- Relevant abbreviations and acronyms, eg EU or EEC for European Union
- Technical terms and jargon, eg Hansard for Parliamentary Debates
- Alternative usage and vocabulary, eg narcotics / drugs, Tories /
Conservatives
- Alternative meanings and contexts, eg web, mouse
- Changes in terminology, eg Native Americans / Red Indians, Eskimos
/ Inuits
- Synonyms
When conducting searches you may also find it necessary to:
- Include more general terms if you do not obtain enough results, eg
replace Elgin marbles with Greek sculpture
- Include narrower terms if you obtain too many results, eg replace
America with United States
- Specifically exclude certain categories, eg Eating disorders, not
in females
Elsewhere in the tutorial you can find help on how to use these keywords
to search the library catalogue and to conduct more advanced searches
in a range of electronic resources. |
Planning Library Research
Using Libraries
Previous 
