Communicating Effectively: Identifying Search Terms

1. Write out questions you have about your topic and underline or highlight the words that you think represent the main ideas of your topic. If I were doing a topic about voting in local elections, my questions might look like this:

• Why is voter turnout so low in local elections?
• What prevents people from voting? What are the challenges or barriers to voting?
• What motivates people to vote in local elections?
• Who voted in the last election?
• What are the demographics of the people who voted? Who did not vote?
• How can cities or politicians encourage people to vote?
• What is the history of voting in Texas?

These words become the words you can use in my search for information.

2. Combine words in strategic ways using the word "AND." I recommend starting broadly, try using one to three words or phrases at first before adding in additional words:

• Voter turnout AND Local elections
• Voting AND challenges
• Voting AND demographics AND Texas
• History AND voting AND Texas

3. Brainstorm about synonyms for each of these ideas or concepts. For example, other words to try instead of "local elections" might be:

• Urban politics
• Local politics
• Mayoral elections

4. Do a search in a subject specific database, in this example, I would try Political Science Complete, and look for additional words in the subject field of the results that you find.