Finding the right search terms
Unfortunately, you won’t always have a complete reading list provided to help you find exactly the publications you need quickly and efficiently; often you have only the topic of a seminar paper and you have to find suitable literature on your own.
When searching for literature on a particular topic, it’s not just a matter of knowing where to look. A key factor in a successful search by topic is finding the most relevant search terms.
Let’s say the topic of your seminar paper is "Online marketing strategies". Think of the three search terms can be derived from this topic and compare it with the result below.
Show search terms
search term 1 | search term 2 | search term 3 |
online | marketing | strategy |
Here are some ideas for identifying related or alternative search terms:
- Synonyms: tourism, travel industry, vacation industry, visitor industry, tourist trade, tourist traffic
- Acronyms: TQM, Total Quality Management
- Singular / plural: woman, women
- Different spellings: organization, organisation
- Technical terminology / colloquial language: CPI, rate of price increases, inflation
- Regional differences: soccer, football
Create a list for the topic used here. Then compare it to the exemplary solution.
Show exemplary solution
online | marketing | strategy |
internet | advertising | campaign |
web | promotion | planning |
digital | sales | method |
social media | publicity | idea |
mobile | advertizing | approach |
web 2.0 | advertisement | instrument |
When you have defined a few search terms, you can start working on your search query.
Fit4Research by Vienna University of Economics and Business is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.