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GEOG 305 (Castagna)

GEOG 305 (Castagna)

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Keywords and Synonyms

It's important to identify the most important words for your topic - these are your keywords. Then find synonyms and related forms so that you're armed with several different searching options.

For your paleoclimate research project, you will need to find a region, time period, and two primary research articles that provide an examination of a proxy or proxies that allow for reconstructions of past climates (paleoclimates).

Here's an example of how to determine useful keywords for your research:

Research Question: How do proxies from the Early Holocene in Australia help us better understand the Paleoclimatology of that region during this period?

Keywords: paleoclimatology, climate, proxy, proxies, Early Holocene, Holocene, Australia, reconstruction

KEYWORD: paleoclimatology

Synonyms
(same MEANING of keyword, but a different word)

Related Forms of Keyword & Synonyms
(same ROOT word,
different form)

 ancient climate

paleoclimate

 

climate

 

KEYWORD: Early Holocene 

Synonyms
(same or similar MEANING of keyword, but a different word)

Related Forms of Keyword & Synonyms
(same ROOT word,
different form)

Early Holocene Holocene
   

 

Initial Keyword Search: Australia and climate and proxy

Second Keyword Search: Holocene and Australia and proxy and climate and reconstruction

After your initial search, you may want to narrow your region, such as the Great Barrier Reef or another region of Australia, and a time period, such as the Holocene, for which you have found relevant articles.

Unlike Google searching, when searching for articles through the library databases, you have to be more careful with keywords. If you use fewer keywords, you will find more articles, and if you use many keywords, fewer results will appear. Only articles that have these exact keywords in their title, summary, or other parts of the description will show up. Library database searches will not search through the whole article or necessarily pick up on similar terms. For this reason, it is a good practice to experiment with different combinations of search terms in your library database research.