One of the greatest challenges in starting a new research project is deciding which search terms best describe your topic as you begin the search for relevant books or articles. Here are a few general suggestions to help you get started:
- city / town / community / county / region
- history / settlement
- issue / problem / conflict / solutions
- development / growth / change / planning
- people / environment /resources
- water use / land use
Try to be really succinct/to the point and use just a couple of keywords instead of typing long sentences. The videos explain all of this quickly (less than 2 minutes!), so please watch it now. Here are few more tips, using some more specific topics as examples:
- Enter keywords that represent your topic:
- Limit searches to two to four keywords or phrases:
Folsom naturally occurring asbestos
- Don't search with sentences, questions, or long phrases.
- Combine terms with OR to broaden:
food supply OR food access OR food security (this would find items with food supply or food access or food security)
- Combine terms with AND to narrow:
Rancho Cordova AND homeless AND housing (this would find items with all three; Rancho Cordova, homeless and housing)
- Place quotation marks around words you wish to be searched as a phrase: "food desert"
