As noted in the last module, specialized encyclopedias and other reference materials are useful for obtaining background information, in addition to helping you focus your topic and identify the main concepts, terms and keywords that describe your topic. These terms will become the keywords used when searching various tools (such as Omni and article indexes like Sociological Abstracts) for books and articles.
With your topic in mind and having done some preliminary background reading you will have some topic keywords to begin your search with. As you proceed with your searching you will come across additional keywords (particularly in the subject terms assigned to books in Omni and scholarly journal articles within the article indexes and databases you will be searching).
For example, for a research paper examining the role that social media played in facilitating a social movement such as the Occupy Movement, the important concepts from this topic, reduced to keywords, would be:
social media AND social movements AND occupy
Now, think about whether there are other terms that could also be used to describe the topic, including synonyms, related terms, or words and phrases that have similar meaning:
| Concept 1 | Concept 2 | Concept 3 |
| social media | social movements | occupy |
| new media | social mobilization | |
| social activism | ||
| uprisings | ||
| YouTube |
Note: Most databases use American spelling, so, when applicable, you should search for both versions of a word (e.g. labour, labor).