Related Terms and Synonyms

When planning a search strategy, brainstorm related words or phrases for searching. When considering related terms:

• Be flexible and come up with a variety of keywords and phrases
• Try several different combinations of keywords and phrases when searching
• Use dictionaries, thesauri, and other words that can be found in database records
• Remember, that not all concepts/keywords will have related terms
• Note that words such as effect or impact are of secondary importance in a research question - they are not main ideas

The figure below gives some examples of related terms for social media and online classroom.

Social Media related terms: Facebook, Twitter (X), social networks

Online classroom related terms: online courses, asynchronous learning, web-based learning