Search terms

Table of contents

Key concepts of your topic

Think about the key concepts of your topic. For example, if your topic was the impact of college students' time management skills on study success, what could be key concepts? It is a good idea to start structuring the topic right away. So, list the key concepts and their synonyms, for example:

  • students
  • university, higher education
  • time management skills
  • study success, success at studies

When you structure your topic, it's easier to build logical search phrases that include synonyms for concepts.

Note that it is also worth digging search terms from beneath the surface, as it were. 

  • For example, what exactly is meant by academic success?
  • Should you also add learning outcomes, grades or graduation as search terms?
  • In this case, you could find an article that talks about successful studies, even if, for example, the word success is not used.

So the topic must be broken down into parts. You can't usually just search with your topic as such, for example, the effects of attachment to the work community on well-being at work. Words that are too general, such as effects and meanings, are also usually not used as search terms. 

Write a list or make a mind map of key words

When we Google, we're used to looking at the first few results, and we hope to find what we're looking for right away.

Sometimes this can happen in scientific information searches, but usually you need to think about keywords and plan your search. As stated in the previous chapter, it is a good idea to make a mind map or list of search terms. This will help you stay on top of the concepts of your topic and the relationships between them. The idea is to perceive a network of concepts related to one's own topic.
 

Synonyms and alternative key words

Do your concepts have synonyms? Could something be said in another way? Do you notice that the search results talk about a concept in different terms? Also collect synonyms and alternative concepts in a mind map or list!

One thing can often be referred to in many different terms. Especially in the human sciences, it is important to remember that words usually have synonyms or the same thing could be expressed differently. In the natural sciences, concepts are more precise, but it is also good for natural scientists to remember synonyms.

The dictionaries and subject dictionaries listed below on this page will help you. It's also a good idea to keep an eye on the search results and pick out any synonyms for your mind map or list.

Why are synonyms important?

  • When you do searches, the database searches for matches.
  • In the search results, you'll get the articles that contain the search terms you use.
  • To get comprehensive search results, synonyms for key concepts should be included in your search.
  • If you were to search for a topic related to physical exercise and only use the search term sport, search results that use the words exercise or physical activity would be unnecessarily omitted.

If you use any generative AI chatbots, such as Copilot, Claude, or ChatGPT, you can try if they can help with brainstorming keywords and explaining concepts. More information and tips can be found on the website: AI tools for brainstorming.

Use these tools to come up with keywords and synonyms!

When thinking about search terms, various tools are used, such as:

  • Dictionaries (e.g. )
  • Thesauruses (e.g. and databases' own thesauruses)
  • Encyclopedias and reference works (e.g. )

In dictionaries

  • You will find equivalents in different languages and synonyms. MOT dictionaries are a good tool for translations and synonym or thesaurus dictionaries, for example.
  • MOT dictionaries include, for example, the Oxford Thesaurus of English. For example, you can find these synonyms for the word sport: physical activity, physical exercise.

Thesauruses

  • Thesaurus type dictionaries list synonyms. They are glossaries in which, in addition to synonyms, you can find general concepts, sub concepts and related concepts.
  • For example, familiarize yourself with the YSO thesaurus, which, among other things, includes equivalents in different languages.
  • Since different concepts can be used to describe the same thing, standardized descriptors are used to describe information. Thesauruses contain concepts that have been agreed to represent something.
  • Databases often have their own thesauruses that contain the keywords used by the database and that are used to describe the contents of articles.

Now, perform some initial searches: Do the search results match what you were looking for? What keywords are included in the key words of the search results? Pick these up as synonyms or alternative concepts. Also, see what keywords there are in sources you may already have found. 

Make a mind map or structured list of keywords that you will supplement as your research progresses!