You will need appropriate keywords to construct searches when using the databases. Keywords will help you refine and narrow your search. The keywords you use in your searches can also include names, legislation, and phrases.
You can often find keywords in your assignment prompt to help you construct searches.
In this excerpt from a Research Starter article on Accountants, we see words including earnings, employment, outlook, work environment, and occupation. Also, note that the links will take you to another related article. Keywords can be phrases, proper names, places, and they are not case sensitive when you're searching.
Once you start searching in the databases, continue to look for clues because you can frequently discover keywords in the search results list. Look in the following places in the individual database records:
 |
|
The subjects will usually reveal terms you wouldn't think of off the top of your head.
There are some subjects that might be useful keywords, including the more specific term of managerial accounting. Subject terms may help you narrow your research focus or reveal synonyms or related terms you can integrate into your search.
Abstracts are summaries of the work. You may discover new ideas, concepts or search terms.
Looking at the abstract, we can see that new technologies have changed the work environment and skills needed by managerial accountants. This change may be something that you'd want to address in an essay. Some of the needed skills might be useful search terms.
Titles like the one above give you a clues. In the example above, we see that new competencies are desirable for accountants.