How to choose good keywords and make more effective searches

1. Keywords:
Small but Mighty
An Online Tutorial
brought to you by
Pilgrim Library

2. What are keywords?
Keywords:
Sum up your topic
Represent your main ideas
Are single words or very short phrases
Should be used when searching for information

3. Why do they matter?
The world of online
information is
beyond a locked door
and keywords are
how you get in.

4. Think about it this way:
Selecting keywords is just like
picking teams in gym class.
Remember those days?
You’re the captain and it’s your job to pick
people and make the best team possible.
Your first choices are those who will make
strong, smart and reliable teammates.

5. Choose your keywords with care
Pick the strongest words with the
most relevance to your main ideas.
Confidence in
searching
comes with
good
keywords!

6. How do I come up with these keywords?
Take your thesis or topic and “sum it up”
in two or three main keywords.
Take those keywords and make sure they’re the
best choices for what you want to find.
Keep clicking, we’ll walk through this together...

7. Choosing keywords
Below are two sample thesis statements.
Try to sum each of them up into 2 or 3 keywords.
What keywords are strongest?
Teachers who implement technology in their
classrooms are most effective.
Small-town entertainment venues have been bolstered
by the recent economic downturn.

8. choosing Keywords
Teachers who implement technology in their
classrooms are most effective.
Strongest keywords: teachers and technology, effective
Second-choice keywords: implement, classrooms
Why were these keywords chosen?
Keywords should say a lot about the focus and purpose of your paper.
This particular paper is going to talk about how teachers who use technology are
most effective. It isn’t going to focus on implementation of technology or
classrooms, so these keywords really aren’t as strong as the others.

9. choosing Keywords
Small-town entertainment venues have been
bolstered by the recent economic downturn
Strongest keywords: small-town entertainment venues
and economic downturn
Second-choice keywords: bolstered, recent
Why were these keywords chosen?
Keywords should say a lot about the focus and purpose of your paper.
This particular paper is going to talk about how small-town entertainment venues
(like local amusement parks and movie theaters) have benefited from recent
economic hardship. The two main ideas that capture the essence of the paper are
the entertainment venues and the economic downturn.

10. Choosing the best keywords
Are there any synonyms for this keyword?
Alternate terms? Other phrasings?
Broader terms? Narrower terms?
teacher
educator, instructor, professor, facilitator, tutor, coach
elementary, secondary, or post-secondary
classroom, department, school, district, state technology
Humanities, social science, science computers, projectors, clickers, smartboards
social networking, collaborative, communicative
handheld, mobile, ipod, cell phone, ereader, ipad
web 2.0, blog, wiki, podcast, youtube, search engine

11. Choosing the best keywords
Are there any synonyms for this keyword?
Alternate terms? Other phrasings?
Broader terms? Narrower terms?
small-town entertainment venues
local, regional, small-scale, family-owned
movie theater, movie theatre, cinema economic downturn
amusement park, water park, county fair, state park financial hardship, recession
Bar, nightclub, restaurant, comedy club, play high unemployment rates, job shortage
economic slump, tough market
tightening budget, cutting costs

12. Nifty little tricks
The Asterisk * Educat*
When you put it at the end of a educate, educator, education, educating
word, a search will find that word Lov*
with all possible word endings. Love, loving, lovely, lovingly, lover
Quotation Marks
You can use quotation marks to tell
“economic hardship”
A search will only bring back results with
a search that words are an item – the exact phrasing “economic hardship”
that they must appear together Will NOT bring back results for economic
hard times or economy hardships
exactly as they are inside the
quotations.

13. Making decisions
Now you have more keyword possibilities than before!
How can you possibly choose? Use the following criteria:
 What best captures the essence of my topic?
 What keywords are most likely to bring back useful
information when I search for them?
Remember that you are always able to change your mind!
That’s the beauty of online searching.
Start with the keywords that seem best, but if that’s not
working, change it up and put in another!

14. And you’re off!
Take your carefully-chosen keywords and begin your
searching. Plug those beauties into search engines or
databases and watch them shine!

15. The next step:
Combining keywords
To become even more effective in your searching, learn how
to combine keywords and create good search strategies.
Click to visit a Pilgrim Library LibGuide
for more help on search strategies.

16. Congratulations!
You successfully finished the library tutorial
Keywords: Small but Mighty
If you have any questions about this tutorial,
please get in touch with Pilgrim Library or
email adearmond@defiance.edu.

17. Click below to check out Pilgrim Library on:
http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://scrapetv.com/News/News%2520Pages/Technology/images/youtube-logo-2.jpg&imgrefurl=http://scrapetv.com/News/News%2520Pages/main%2520pages/Technology-page-2-Scrape-TV-The-World-on-your-
side.html&usg=__iFbpPsY6BLjRmwM7tUJNIR19kOk=&h=345&w=487&sz=21&hl=en&start=0&sig2=GZgOzPgZ1jSdBbfHnnMvmA&tbnid=dI7uwE0TkZ9HwM:&tbnh=139&tbnw=229&ei=q_lGTPnhPInFnAf89rmFBA&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dyoutube%2Blogo%26hl%3Den%26biw%3D1280%26bih%3D860%26gbv%3D2%26tbs%3Disch:10,100&itbs=1&iact=hc&vpx=149&vpy=267&dur=883&hovh=189&hovw=267&tx=184&ty=67&page=1&ndsp=24&ved=1t:429,r:6,s:0&biw=1280&bih=860;
http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www3.babson.edu/Students/Graduate/Organizations/life_sciences/images/logo_facebook_1.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www3.babson.edu/Students/Graduate/Organizations/life_sciences/&usg=__hyF70ge_X96dB54VRikm59yuWg4=&h=385&w=1024&sz=25&hl=en&start=0&sig2=PD0GBAZdS78Cei3HxNx-
7A&tbnid=LTkRB8ED8k4OcM:&tbnh=99&tbnw=258&ei=ePtGTOP5O9LtnQfiion2CQ&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dfacebook%2Blogo%26hl%3Den%26gbv%3D2%26biw%3D1280%26bih%3D860%26tbs%3Disch:1&itbs=1&iact=hc&vpx=382&vpy=124&dur=5460&hovh=137&hovw=366&tx=266&ty=75&page=1&ndsp=24&ved=1t:429,r:1,s:0&biw=1280&bih=860