3.3 Using Variant Terms to Describe your Topical Concepts

Now that you have determined which concepts you will be using to search for information, it is time to begin listing keywords and synonyms that describe each concept. This strategy will help you improve and increase your search results. The video below will give you an overview of this technique.

The three concepts used in the preceding chapter will now serve as an example in identifying their corresponding keywords and synonyms.

The keywords and subject headings you discover when reading and searching for information in the library catalog and other databases will help build the variant terms to describe the concepts. It is important to keep track of them. In chapter 2.3, the image of a catalog record for the The SAGE Handbook of Autism and Education is given and subject headings are highlighted at the middle of the record. Note the subject heading autistic children, which is relevant to the autism concept and could be added to the concept’s list of variant terms.

Please see the next chapter for implementing concepts and their variant terms in the context of a database search.