Alright.
Here you are.
You're working on a research project and one of the most important things you can do before
you start searching for information is to spend a little time taking your topic or research
question and coming up with the best possible search terms.
It can be really tempting to just jump straight into the search process, whether you're searching
Google or whether you're searching the VCU Libraries, but in many instances the words
that you thought of to search for your topic or research question are not the only words
other people have used to describe that same phenomenon.
So in short, it is very important to spend time thinking about what words you might use
to search for things.
It may seem a bit meta since, Ironically, we’re searching what to search for!
Alright, to begin.
Let's say for example you've got a research question about whether or not swearing, like
cursing, can reduce pain.
The first thing you want to do is identify the most important words in that research
question and eliminate everything else.
So in this case swearing and pain are one of the most important words here.
Once you've done that, spend some time thinking about additional search terms.
For example, how might someone else describe the same phenomenon?
You can start by thinking synonyms or related terms for each of those most important words.
If we look at swearing, you can just think on it a bit and things may come to mind.
The things that came to my mind when I thought of swearing are profanity, expletives, cursing,
things of that nature.
Other times you might have to do a little detective work to come up with some better
words.
For example let’s shift our focus to the term pain.
You might need to think harder about that because at least to me no synonyms or related terms immediately
come to my mind for me and you shouldn't be afraid to Google it especially in that early research
process where you're just trying to get your bearings a little bit and learn about words
that might work well for your searching process.
So if we go into Google, and if I just did a simple search for swearing and pain, one
of the first things that came up for me was actually a Wikipedia article.
Now I'm sure you've already heard plenty about Wikipedia, so let me go ahead and give the
disclaimer that generally speaking it would be extremely rare for me to ever cite Wikipedia
in a research paper.
However, it serves a useful purpose in finding related words for your research and just getting
some background language for your topic.
There are other great ways to use Wikipedia, but for now we'll just talk about how useful
it is for finding different search terms.
When I Googled it the first thing that came up with Wikipedia was the article titled Hypoalgesic
Effect of Swearing.
Now I had not previously heard of this word hypoalgesic, but after reading a little of
the article, what it turns out to be is hypoalgesia, is the reduction of response to painful stimuli.
So in other words you don't feel pain as much.
It turns out hypoalgesic or hypoalgesia, would be a great search term for me.
So I want you to spend some time thinking about additional search terms that might work
for you.
It's just a bit of a game to be honest to start throwing some search terms either in
the Libraries databases or our main search tool or in the Google Scholar wherever you
might be searching and kind of see what comes back.
For example I might try what I originally started with, swearing/pain or swearing/hypoalgesia,
or profanity/pain, expletives/hypoalgesia.
I know it seems like the possibilities go on and on but generally the process can go
fairly quickly when you iron out what those best possible search terms are.
Now this is a good time to mention that sometimes it does take a while to actually go through
the entire research process.
You might settle on the words early but you're going to have to do your reading as you go
to do that.
And I would encourage you, as you're researching, to remember that while you're reading about
your topic and finding good information you might discover more words that you could reincorporate
into your search strategy.
Note them down for later! Keep them on hand because you'll want to remember these terms.
It's also possible that you'll have a topic that maybe either someone hasn't researched very much of
They haven't researched your exact research question or you just find that it would be useful to break up your search
into two separate categories.
For example I might decide to do some searching just on hypoalgesia because I'd like to have
a deeper background knowledge on it.
Maybe I'll do some searching just on swearing to learn a little bit about its history, or
its cultural context.
You might find yourself in that position, and it could be a great opportunity for you
to search for these different components of your question and then you have the opportunity
to weave all of that together.
So here’s the moral of the story: language is hugely important when you are searching
for information.
Part of the research process is searching for how to search!
And if you're having any trouble with that process, a librarian is always happy to help!