Search Strategies
1. Brainstorm keywords, related terms and synonyms. Examples...
- economic geology, mineral deposits
- depressions, cyclones
- onlap, coastal onlap
2. Use AND to focus your search on a smaller result set. Examples...
- glacier AND striation
- soil AND fertility AND conservation
3. Use OR to link synonyms and gain a larger result set. Examples...
- temperature gradients AND (thermal wind OR jet streams)
- exfoliation AND (weathering OR erosion)
4. Put quotations around your terms for exact searches
Example: "global seismographic network"
"deep-sea trench"
The keywords you come up with represent the concepts and themes you're exploring. You can incorporate keywords into a question, and as you explore your topic in more depth you can turn that question into a hypothesis. For example:
1. Keywords: El nino, California, drought
2. Question: What are the meteorological causes of the current California drought?
3. Hypothesis: Sea surface temperature forecasts can aid planning for water usage and agribusiness.