Dr. Rath's Search Term Generator
SUNY Campus Edition

1
Start Here

Pick Your Campus

  • Pick the SUNY campus whose library you want to search.
2
Start with your research question

What makes a good question?

  • Specific and able to be researched
  • Does not have a yes or no answer
  • Only has 2 or 3 main parts
  • Usually starts with how, why, or what
  • Example: "How does social media use affect college students' sleep?"
3
Identify key concepts

How to pick keywords

  • Look for central nouns or ideas from your question.
  • Pick 2 to 4 main concepts.
  • Example from our question: "college students", "social media", and "sleep".

Your research question

Concept 1
Concept 2
4
Add synonyms and related terms

Tips for finding synonyms

  • Use a thesaurus, Google, generative AI, or your brain to make a list.
  • Include alternate spellings and broader or narrower terms.
  • Spell out acronyms completely.
  • Example synonyms for "college students": undergraduates, university students, post-secondary students.
  • Example synonyms for "social media": Instagram, Facebook, Snapchat, messaging, apps, applications.
  • Example synonyms for "sleep": rest, sleeping, tired, night.
5
Review and search

Boolean basics

Boolean is a way of combining your search terms. For library search, AND and OR have specific meanings.

  • OR means ANY and connects synonyms: (A OR B)
  • AND means BOTH and connects concepts: (A) AND (B)
  • Use quotes for keywords that are more than one word: "social media"
  • Use a * to truncate a word and find multiple endings: adolescen*

Search summary

Your Boolean search

You can edit these terms in the text box below before launching your campus search.

When you're done, please come back here and scroll down to take a brief survey on how well this tool worked.

Provide Feedback on This Tool

You are being asked to provide some brief, anonymous feedback on your use of this tool. There is no way to connect your responses to you and your individual responses will not be shared beyond the study team. Participation in this research is voluntary, and you may skip any question. Questions? Please contact Dr. Rath or the Brockport IRB.

If you are over 18 and would like to participate, please provide your feedback to Dr. Rath.

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