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How to find what you need, and ignore what you don't

Keywords

OK, now we have decided that we don’t need to read everything ever, where can we find what we do want? We have one word for you and it will change your life: keywords.

Keywords are words, not sentences, that we can combine to really get to point of what we are looking for. Think of your title and think about what is really important. If you don’t have a title, you can use this one:

Should school uniforms be compulsory in secondary schools as a way of giving routine?

There’s a lot there isn’t there? You are looking to see if there is a relationship between wearing a uniform, the school enforcing it, UK pupils aged 11-19 and if routines help them.

Start to think about these as single words. You can think about:

  • Synonyms – words that mean the same thing, or similar like student and pupil
  • Acronyms and abbreviations - shortened forms of a word or phrases like DFE for Department For Education
  • Singular and Plural like school or schools
  • Alternative spellings like organisation and organization

You might come up with a list like this:

  • Secondary School
  • United Kingdom and UK
  • Uniform
  • Routine

List what other words you can think of, for your topic or for this one about schools. Now, what can we do with this list of randomish words? Well, my friend - read on...