After an introduction by the instructor, students complete a handout for some cognitive practice on the second step to keyword searching online. That step is to consider terms related to the main concepts in a research question, which they have already identified.
Learning Outcomes
Students will be able to:
- Consider terms related to the main concepts in their research questions when writing search statements.
Relevant Threshold Concepts
- Searching as strategic exploration.
Suggestions for Use
- This activity should be helpful in classes where student researchers will be expected to look for sources using keyword searching.
- Steps 1 and 3 of keyword searching are covered in Activity 4A and 4C, respectively. Activity 5B covers subject heading searching.
- You can use this and Activities 4A and 4C all in one class or perhaps separately on back-to-back class days to cover the keyword searching topic as a whole. (They are presented as separate activities in order to minimize the amount of class time used in any one class.)
- If you would prefer that students practice only with research questions related to your discipline, you can change the questions on Handout 4B-1 accordingly.
- Students can complete Handout 4B-1 electronically or in print.
- You may have to overcome some students’ perception that they are already excellent online searchers. Many students feel that way because have been searching for a long time and because anything they type into Google produces results.
- Some students may say that the three steps explained in this and Activities 4A and 4C are too much trouble or unnecessary. It’s wise to tell them that searching with precision is not necessary unless the results of the search are important to them or will have important consequences. So maybe they don’t have to do it for every search but definitely for their research projects, trying to find out whether their health symptoms are dangerous, and, say, for exploring a company that they may want to work for.
Pre-Class Preparation
- Review the handout and answer sheet for this activity.
- Review In-Class Procedure below.
- If you decided to have students practice with research questions related only to your discipline, change the questions on Handout 4B-1 accordingly.
- Decide whether you want students to complete handout 4B-1 on paper or electronically.
- If you decided on electronic handouts, put handout 4B-1 in your learning management system.
- If you decided on paper copies, print Handout 4B-1 (1 copy per student and 1 for yourself) and Answer Key 4B-1 (1 copy for yourself).
- Prepare for introducing the session, using your own remarks or the Possible Script below, if it seems helpful.
- Using Answer Sheet 4B-1, plan your discussion of the answers on the handout.
- Download and/or print In-Class Procedure so you can take it with you to class.
In-Class Procedure
- If you’re having students use printed copies of Handout 4B-1, pass them out or set them where students can pick them up as they come in.
- If you’re having students use an electronic Handout 4B-1, tell them how to find and open it.
- Introduce the activity.
- Ask students to complete Handout 4B-1 in about 5 minutes.
- After about 5 minutes, discuss answers to the questions with students.
- To conclude the activity, tell students that what they’ve learned today works well with search engines such as Google and Bing and specialized databases. However, when they are keyword searching in a specialized database, they should use fewer search terms than they use in search engines.
Possible Script
Earlier we talked about the first step in searching with precision. That was to identify the main concepts of your research question (what you want to find out). Today we’re going to talk about the second step. That is to consider using or adding terms that are related to the words you identified as main concepts. After all, the language of your main concepts probably stems from your understanding of the world. But the people who have been writing about your topic—perhaps professionals in the field–may have some different understandings of the world, which result in different terms for the same ideas.
For instance, most of us may refer to “high blood pressure,” but medical professionals and researchers writing about that are much more likely to use the term “hypertension” or maybe even “cardiovascular disease.”
These language differences are important because it is the language of the people who have been writing that we are trying to match in our search statements. That’s because it is their writings that Google and other search engines actually search through.
Relevant Choosing & Using Sources Chapters:
Chapter 4, Precision Searching
