Keywords

Keywords are natural language words. You can think of them like the words you use in a typical online search engine. Select keywords by thinking about important words or phrases related to your research topic, as well as possible synonyms. Keywords are a more flexible way to search, because the database will pull results that have those words anywhere within the text. The potential downside to this is that you may receive results that aren't related to your topic.

Example

My research question is: What impacts do pop-up stores have on brand visibility?

Possible keywords:

• pop-up store (synonyms: pop-up shop; pop-up retail; temporary retailing)
• consumer attitudes (customer attitudes) 
• brand awareness (brand visibility)
• marketing strategy
• promotion

Subject Headings

Subject headings are pre-defined words or phrases assigned by the database that describe the main topics of an article. Searching by subject heading is typically much more precise than searching by keyword, but it can be hard to guess the specific subject headings used by a database.

There are a couple of ways to find the subject headings related to your topic in a database. Some databases have an online thesaurus that lists the subject headings used in that database. You can use that thesaurus to select subject headings related to your topic. Alternately, if you start with a keyword search and identify a few relevant articles, you can check the subject headings used for those articles.

Example

In the database, ABI/INFORM, the following subject terms may be relevant to the topic of sustainable tourism:

• Sustainability
• Tourism
• Sustainable tourism
• Sustainable development
• Tourism development
• Ecotourism
• Conservation
• Ecology

Searching Specific Fields

When you conduct a basic search in most databases, the database will search your keywords in all searchable fields, which can include the title, abstract, database-supplied keywords, subject headings, and the full text of the resource. Some databases will allow you to limit your results to those that have your keyword in specific fields.

For example, you might try limiting the search to words found only in the title or abstract. Because the title and abstract contain the key concepts discussed in an article, if your keywords are in one of those locations there is a better chance the article is relevant to your research. This can be helpful if you are getting too many results and need an additional limiter.