In one or two sentences, summarize your search topic. State in your own words what you want to find information on. Underline the main concepts in the statement above. Most searches can be broken down into two or three main concepts. List subject terms which describe concepts you have identified.
Subject terms can be keywords, synonyms or variant forms of a word.
You can use dictionaries and thesauri to help you in selecting the appropriate terms. Nancy Murrey, Instruction Librarian, Rochester Institute of Technology, 1994. Comments and suggestions are welcome.