Making the Most out of Your Main Concepts

Identify the main concepts in your research question by selecting nouns important to the meaning of your question. Leave out words that don’t help the search, such as adjectives, adverbs, prepositions and, usually, verbs. Nouns that you would use to tag your research question so you could find it later are likely to be its main concepts. Words like “effects,” “benefits,” “versus,” or common words such as “in” or “from” are not useful because they don’t add context to the research question. Removing them doesn’t change the meaning of the concept or keyword.

Finding the main concepts in a research question is a lot like the main idea in an essay or a story. Often, the main idea is in the first paragraph, but not always. Sometimes it’s in a later paragraph or even in the conclusion. The same is true with research questions—the main concepts can be at the beginning, middle, or end. It’s best to stick to nouns and only what’s necessary, rather than words that are already implied. Focusing on what’s implied rather than the obvious may lead you to read into concepts that may not be there.

It’s also smart to remember some words have connotations other than the concept you are interested in. For instance, if you identify depression as a main idea, be aware that the search engine won’t automatically know whether you mean depression as a psychological state, as a condition of the economy, or as a weather characteristic. That is why tying it to another search term to give it context is more effective as a search phrase (e.g. “clinical depression” over “depression” or “depressed”).