Use key search terms that express the most important concepts related to your topic.
The more terms you use, the fewer results you get, so be selective.
Example: A search like impact of gender on people's salary expectations will get far fewer results than gender AND salary AND expectations.
The best way to search would be to go into advanced search in OneSearch or the database you are searching, Then put each idea on one line of the search. Once you do that and you have results, look for "peer-reviewed" as an option to select only peer-reviewed journal articles.
Brainstorm terms that mean the same thing.
Example: An article about salary may not use that word, so try terms like wages, pay, income, or earnings. Searching for all of those terms together with OR between them (example: salary OR pay OR wages OR income OR earnings) tells the search engine to find at least one of the terms in your search results.
Quick background research may help you identify effective keywords.
See resources in the General Resources Guide and subject-specific guides (e.g. Business, Education, Psychology.) Wikipedia may also provide basic information about your topic (e.g. keywords, people's names, or place names). Once you have your key search words, try them in various combinations.
Brainstorming Keywords Video (Portland State University)
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