1. Identify the keywords or key phrases in your research need.
Example:
Does the recent election in Burma reflect a move away from a totalitarian government?
2. Identify synonyms for those words and phrases:
| election | Burma | totalitarian | government |
| vote | Myanmar | junta | rule |
| voting | military | regime | |
| vot* | "human rights" |
3. Use search techniques to improve your search results:
| vot* = vote OR voting | symbols to expand search terms (truncation) |
| election AND Burma | AND, OR, NOT to combine search terms |
| “human rights” | quotation marks around phrases |
4. Use the "Identifying Search Terms Worksheet" in the left Get Help with Search Terms box to try it yourself.
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