Keywords are words or phrases that are significant to what you are researching. First, identify the ideas, concepts, or topics of your research question, then find words that relate. For instance, if you want to learn about where you can buy a cup of coffee in Denton, TX, you might search in Google for “Where can I find a coffee shop in Denton, Texas?"

Topic 1: Beverages

Topic 2: Location

Research scope is how widely or narrowly you investigate a topic. Returning to our quest to find coffee in Denton, how far from my location do I want to search, and am I interested in having a lot of beverage options or am I looking for a specific beverage? Expand or narrow your research scope by adjusting the keywords.

We all do research like this every day to get directions, find merchandise, or search news stories. The searching concepts are similar in academic research. 

Start by writing out a full sentence about what you want to learn and pick out the key concepts or topics in the sentence to use as your keywords.