Why are Keywords Important [video]
Transcript:
This is a video about key words and why they matter for ...
searching Library search tools like data bases and OneSearch.
This may be the first time you're seeing the Library ...
homepage so I'm showing a screenshot of it so you can ...
see that OneSearch is the search box that shows up in the middle of the Library ...
homepage. It lets you search for books articles and ...
more that we'll go over another video.
What I mean by keywords are words that are unique and ...
important for the topic you're searching for.
Keywords are the words you type into OneSearch or ...
another search tool.
Library search tools work differently than Google in that ...
Google will let you type in an entire question or use natural ...
language like the language you would use everyday.
Library research tools match the words that you type in ...
with the words in the results or in the metadata about the ...
results. Metadata means the title,
author, sometimes the table of ...
contents, and other information that's in ...
the library search tool about item.
So library search tools are typically only matching the ...
words you type in with the words in the results.
They do not automatically look for results that would have ...
synonyms for the words you type in,
or otherwise interpret the words that you type in,
the way Google would do.
Another difference between Google and library search ...
tools is that the language in the results in the library ...
research tools tends to be more scholarly than the words ...
in Google, as you'd probably expect.
So for example, if you're searching for ...
teenagers you might instead type adolescents in the library search tools.
Here's a quick example of selecting keywords-- real ...
simple example. There is nothing absolutely ...
right or wrong about the keywords that should be ...
typed in for any particular topic but this is an example of ...
what I would do for this topic.
So the topic I have on the PowerPoint here is "what is ...
the relationship between social media use and ...
depression in adolescents?"
I've highlighted the words social media,
depression and adolescence as the keywords that I would type in.
So you might think the word relationship could be an ...
important word, which is understandable;
but, I would not include that as a ...
word I would type in because I don't think that's unique ...
enough to my topic.
Similarly for research questions that have the words ...
"effects" or "impacts,"
I usually don't include that in my
keywords that I type into the database.
They might pull up any results and have the word "effects"
which would not necessarily be relevant to my topic.
Some library search tools will pull up all the results that ...
have any one of the words you typed in.
Others will by default only search for the exact terms or ...
phrases you typed in so, in that case,
you don't want to put too many terms in or you might ...
not get any results.
We'll talk about that more as we look at particular search tools.
But for now, just to give you a general idea ...
of how I typically get started, I typically put in two or three ...
terms or phrases and
play around from there to see what works the best for my topic.