The key concepts will probably be the terms you use when you begin searching online catalogs and databases. However, it is also necessary to create a list of as many related terms and synonyms for your key concepts as possible. Why? One term may not retrieve the results you were hoping for.

For example, if you were writing a paper for a different class, the term to describe execution policies might be "death penalty" in one database and "capital punishment" in another.

Below is a sample list created using the key concepts we pulled from our research question on the previous page.