ENGL 516 - Written Communication for the Sciences

Welcome! This guide is designed to help you learn how to use K-State Libraries' many resources to complete your ENGL 516 assignments.

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.

About the Databases

Databases -- Databases are a place to find journal, magazine and newspaper articles and sometimes other items like electronic books, dissertation chapters, and more. Databases are accessible from off campus to all current students, faculty, and staff with an eID and password.

E-Journals -- use e-journals to determine whether or not we subscribe to a journal and its format (print, electronic or both)

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!

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

Synonyms