Political Science

This guide provides information about conducting research and library resources for students studying political science.

Library Research Guide

Keywords

Good keywords are essential to good research. Develop a list of keywords before you start searching.

To start the list, ask yourself two questions:

1. What do I know about my topic?

2. What do I want to know about my topic?

Write the answers to those questions using single words or simple phrases. These become your keywords.

Developing this list is an iterative process. Your list of keywords may change as you learn more information through your research.

Finding Keywords for your Topic

This brief video (0:59) from the University Library at UNC Greensboro explains how to turn your research question into useful keywords. Transcript.

If you would like more practice with keywords, check out the rest of their tutorial!

PATH: Lighting Your Way From Research to Writing (UNCG Libraries) / CC BY-NC-SA 3.0

Keywords and Synonyms

Why Keywords?

Because good keywords are essential to good research.
The more keywords you can think of, the more likely you will find what you are looking for.

Why Synonyms?

Synonyms make your list of keywords longer. More keywords = better searching = more results. Look at the example below to get an idea of how synoyms can broaden your understanding of a given concept:

Our advice:

Make lists of keywords for the main concepts of your research topic
Use single words or simple phrases
Be prepared that this may all change as you learn more information through your research
Be flexible, be adaptable in your thinking
Use a thesaurus to help generate synonyms