Keywords are the terms and their synonyms that you identify as relevant to your research question. You can build flexibility into your search by accounting for the different language researchers might use to describe the same topic. Careful consideration of terms will define the scope of your search.

Brainstorming terms and synonyms of those terms is a great place to start, but once you have a few articles that fit your research question, mine the language used by those authors for additional possibilities. Don't forget to include relevant international spellings (e.g. pediatric vs. paediatric) or even common misspellings.

Directing a database to search for keyworks in specific locations can help you improve relevancy of your results. Check for search field options to search within areas such as the title and/or abstract of an article. Each database is a little different, but check for drop-down menu next to search bars in an advanced search feature.

Example:

teen, teens, teenage, teenager, teenagers, adolescent, adolescents, adolescence, young adult, young adults

A high quality search is based not only on the selection of the correct terms, but how they are combined.

AND is the Boolean Operator used to combine unique concepts. Two terms combined with AND will only return matches that contain both concepts.

In the image below, the yellow circle represents all items in a database that involve the term 'chocolate'. The blue circle represents all items in a database that involve the term 'cake'. By searching for chocolate AND cake, the database will return only those results that are in the overlapping green area. This, for example, is where a recipe for chocolate cake would fall.

A high quality search is based not only on the selection of the correct terms, but how they are combined.

OR is the Boolean Operator used to combine synonymous concepts. Two terms combined with OR will return matches that contain any instance of either/all concepts.

In the image below, the yellow circle represents all items in a database that involve the term 'chocolate'. The pink circle represents all items in a database that involve the term 'strawberry'. By searching for chocolate OR strawberry, the database will return any results that contain either term. That means all results within either the yellow or pink areas.

Keeping your unique concepts organized, use Boolean logic to combine your terms. The structure and punctuation used may look different across databases, but the basics are the same. AND combines to unique concepts and returns results that contain both. OR broadens your search by offering viable synonyms returning results that match any one of the terms. The basic structure is as follows:

(Concept1 OR Synonym1) AND (Concept2 OR Synonym2)

In the image below, the yellow circle represents all items in a database that involve the term 'chocolate'. The pink circle represents all items in a database that involve the term 'strawberry'. The blue circle represents all items in a database that involve the term 'cake'. By searching for (chocolate OR strawberry) AND cake, the database will return those results that involve either flavor and the term cake. These are represented in the overlapping purple, green and brown areas. In this example, you might get recipes for chocolate cake, strawberry cake and chocolate strawberry cake. You will not get tips on making chocolate covered strawberries.