For all the databases, the researcher needs to work out some appropriate keywords which could be entered into the search engines. This allows the person to identify suitable references. A number of business dictionaries helps to recognise the area of research and also identify changes in the language used to describe the subject. For example the term ‘personnel management’ has now been synonymously used for ‘HRM’ and ‘payment systems’ is mostly referred for words like reward management.
Even opposites are helpful like ‘employment/unemployment. One could also find out through alternative spellings like organisation/organisation, color/colour. The researcher should be prepared to experiment and to make changes in the search for keywords as the project progresses. The researcher in the whole process would realise that as the literature is searched there could be other ways of describing the subject as well.
In much of the database, to type in the title of the project or a sentence or any long phrases if the search term is not advisable, until and unless someone has written something with the same name, the researcher would not be able to find much. He/she needs to think in basically terms of keywords. If the scholar is keen on the topic ‘the role of women in the management of service industry’, the keywords would be WOMEN and MANAGEMENT and SERVICE INDUSTRY.
One should use the HELP provided in the databases only to find out the ways of suing the keywords for required results.