Searching with Keywords

Taking a few minutes to develop a list of keywords and alternative keywords will save you time searching in a database. In addition to developing an initial keyword list, it is also important to add new keywords that you discover as you read articles and become more familiar with your topic.

Let's practice searching a database with your keyword list by reopening PsycINFO Links to an external site. in a separate tab.

When searching a library database, you always want to search with at least two keywords. Let's practice by typing in "cell phone" in the first keyword box and addiction in the second keyword box. Anytime you have a multi-word keyword, you need to put quotation marks around it to ensure the database searches the phrase and not each word separately.

Your search should retrieve around 50 results. Take a moment to scroll through the results and browse the titles. Continue to the next page to learn strategies you can use to narrow your results to articles more related to your research.