[n] Steps in choosing Effective Keywords

When you write a paper and publish it, the journal which has published your paper makes

your research known to its readers. However, it is rather obvious that no researcher reads all the

journals which are published in his field of study - issue of time being just one reason- and only

focuses on few influential ones. Of course most researchers follow these journals to keep

themselves updated. However, papers relevant to some researchers may be published in journals

that they do not read regularly or not read at all. This is where the concept of keywords and

search engines comes up.

What is a keyword? Well, let’s say a keyword is a key which opens the door to your paper.

It is one element which enables the dissemination of your paper –along with tile and abstract

which will be discussed in future articles- and without these, readers would not be able to find or

cite your paper. Keywords lead other researchers to your paper which may not be visible to them

during their process of reading or, as mentioned above, in the journals they follow. The problem

is that and there are many journals and papers out there, so chances are that when you publish a

paper in one journal only a limited number of researchers may notice it. And even when these

researchers notice your paper in that journal, again chances are that the the title you have

selected will fail to indicate any relevance.

One important thing to remember is that most search engines and databases use the words

found in the title, abstract, and keywords of your paper to display it when someone searches with

a keyword. So these three determine the visibility of your paper and if they are optimized and

properly selected, chances of your paper being found and cited by other researchers will

dramatically increase.

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Now one practical example of how keywords can be useful and how important they are for

the visibility of your paper. Let’ say you have published a paper titled ‘new approaches to

teaching listening comprehension’. Now, your paper describes, for instance, how metacognitive

strategies can help improve listening comprehension. But, your title does not make reference to

the strategies. So, suitable keywords for your paper will include the name of those metacognitive

strategies, and a search for any of those will lead other researchers to your paper.

Here are some tips:

1. You should not use terms in the title of your paper as keywords, why? Because keywords

complement the information you include in your title. Terms in the title are automatically

included in indexes, and keywords function as additional pointers.

2. Read through your paper, list down the terms and/or phrases which are used repeatedly.

Find the major concepts and the terms related to them. Make sure you include all your

main key terms and/or phrases and consider including synonyms for these terms (like

strategy, tactic, plan).

3. Before submitting your article, try your keywords by searching them in search engines

and check if the results that come up are relevant to the subject of your paper. This will

help you determining the suitability of your keywords and title.

Now

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