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Academic English & Research vocabulary · Thesis and Article Structure

Keyword

Meaning in academic english & research, with examples

/ˈkiːwɜːd/nounCore term

In academic english & research, keyword means: One of a small set of words or short phrases listed under an abstract to describe the main topics of a paper and help people find it in databases.

In Turkish: anahtar kelime, anahtar sözcük

How it is used

Journals usually ask for three to six keywords, often separated by semicolons. Good keywords add terms that are not already in the title. In literature searches, keywords are also the search terms you type into a database, combined with AND and OR.

Example sentences

  1. Please provide four to six keywords that do not repeat words from the title.

  2. We searched Scopus using the keywords 'teacher burnout' and 'secondary school'.

Common collocations

  • provide keywords
  • keyword search
  • search keywords
  • relevant keywords
  • abstractA short summary at the start of an article, thesis or conference submission that states the aim, methods, main findings and conclusion.
  • databaseAn online collection of records for journal articles, books and other publications that researchers can search to find literature.
  • literature reviewA critical summary of what has already been published on a topic, showing the main ideas, debates and gaps that a new study responds to.
  • systematic reviewA review that uses a clear, pre-planned and repeatable method to find, select and evaluate all relevant studies on a specific question.

This word in other fields

The same English word can have a different meaning in another field:

More terms: Thesis and Article Structure

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