Anthropology

PLANNING YOUR RESEARCH

TOPIC EXAMPLE

What is the archaeological evidence for the peopling of the Americas?

IDENTIFY KEYWORDS

Identify keywords from your topic and start your search. You can narrow down any topic by combining the keywords you have identified in your question.    "archaeological evidence"    AND   peopling    AND   Americas

KEYWORD SYNONYMS

To come up with other keywords to help narrow or expand or refocus your search:

• Brainstorm alternate words or synonyms
• Looks for alternate or related keywords or synonyms or subject headings in applicable results.

Your search results will typically have subject headings (similar to tags), author-selected keywords, and keywords in the abstract of the article that will help identify synonyms and expand your keyword bank.

Keyword concept 1
"archaeological evidence"
"archaeological record"
archaeolog*

Keyword concept 2
peopling
population 
 

Keyword concept 3
Americas
North America
Canada

AND searches for resources that contain both of your keywords.

"archaeological evidence" AND peopling

OR searches for resources with either or both of your keywords. 

peopling OR population

NOT searches for results with only your first keyword and hides results containing your second keyword.

"north america" NOT "united states"

TIPS

Use quotation marks to search a TWO WORD concept such as:
“archaeological evidence” ; “North America”
Use an * at the root of a word to find alternate forms of the word:​
Archaeolog* finds archaeology, archaeological, etc.