 In this video, I will talk about translating a research question into usable keywords for searching. Let's say my research question is, how or why are celebrities using social media? I would not search that entire question. Instead, I would identify two to four of the most important words in the question to use as keywords. To do this, focus on the nouns. Ignore connecting words such as of, the, in. The next step is to generate synonyms and related terms for each keyword. Generating synonyms of keywords is important because there are often multiple types of conversations surrounding a topic, and those conversations may be composed of different vocabulary. For example, doctors, nurses, and medical researchers may refer to medical conditions using the scientific or scholarly terminology, such as conjunctivitis. However, non-experts, such as the doctors, patients, and their family may refer to the same condition as pink eye. It's good practice to try both terms when searching for information. Let's go back to the research question, which is how or why celebrities are using social media. When I put the entire question into the database, I get a ton of irrelevant results and an error message. This is why using keywords instead of a phrase is important in a database. When I put a few keywords into the database, I get more relevant results. Of course, if I search for information in a library database and don't get the results I hoped for, I can simply generate some synonyms or related terms. Remember, all searching is trial and error when it comes to keywords.