Xavier University: Library: XU.TUTOR: Defining the Question: Searching by keyword: Advantages

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XU.TUTOR

Defining the Question
Identifying Resources
Improving a Search
Evaluating Websites
Preventing Plagiarism
Understanding Copyright

Defiining the question

5. Searching by keyword: Advantages

Keyword searching is useful when appropriate subject terms are unknown. Subject terms are words assigned to an article or a book by an indexer or cataloger.

Keyword searching is a good way to identify appropriate subject terms for your concepts (demo:computer games search in Academic Search Complete.

Keyword searching is particularly advantageous for new concepts or buzzwords that have not been assigned subject terms (demo: mod chips search in Business Source Complete).

Common phrases, representing specific concepts, may also be used as keywords; for example, speaker of the house or latchkey children.

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