2c. Check and Refine Your Keyword Search#
Introduction#
After setting up your basic search, you can further refine your keyword search strategy, as well as add additional search strategies. You can evaluate the quantity and relevance of your search results, and subsequently use techniques to either broaden or narrow your initial search.
Evaluating Your Keyword Search
Judging the Quantity and Relevance of Your Results
Refine Your Keyword Search
Use basic strategies to broaden or narrow your search
Use AI to Refine Your Draft Query
Use tools like Copilot to improve your search
Step 1: Check Quantity and Relevance:#
Searching is a matter of trial and error, and you do not create a perfect search plan all at once. You create a search plan, try it out, evaluate your search results, edit your search plan, and keep repeating these steps until your search plan is the best you can make it. When you assess your query, you first look at the quantity of your results, followed by how relevant the results are to your question.
Quantity#
How many results you need is very dependent on the field you work in. Often around +/- 200-300 results is a good number to work with. If you have far more or far fewer results, it may be time to adjust your initial search.
Relevance#
Relevance means that the results of your search are of significance for your research topic. To check this you should link back the information you have found to your research question. In most academic databases you can sort your results by relevance. Look at the title and abstracts of the documents you found and if less than 50% of the documents is relevant, adjust your search terms. For relevant search terms you can also use keywords assigned by the database itself.
In a proper literature search about 80% of your search results should be relevant. If all the documents you found are relevant then there is a possibility you are missing important literature, and maybe you should broaden your search.
Step 2: Refine Your Keyword Search#
Broadening Your Search#
When you have found too few results, common techniques to broaden your search include:
Adding additional synonyms and alternative terms
Removing concepts from your search
Broadening specific concepts
Watch the video below for a guided example on how to do this.
"Searching How-to Part 2: Broadening your Search" by TU Delft Library Education Support is licensed under CC-BY
Narrowing Your Search#
When you have found too many results, common techniques to narrow down your search include:
Adding concepts to your research question
Making concepts more specific
Using filters
Watch the video below for a guided example on how to do this:
"Searching How-to Part 3: Narrowing your Search" by TU Delft Library Education Support is licensed under CC-BY
Step 3: Use AI to Help Refine Your Draft Query#
THESIS SUPERVISOR
Check with your supervisor if you are allowed to use AI in your thesis project. If yes, document the tools and prompts you used so you can report your AI use in your thesis.
If you are allowed to use AI, you can use Copilot to support your keyword search. For example, you can ask it for additional synonyms as you are developing your draft keyword search.
While general tools can develop queries from scratch, it is recommended to draft an initial query yourself, and give it your initial search query, to provide the AI with some direction and come up with a better query. (Walma & Looij, 2025)
Example Prompt
I am a master student in [study]. I am working on a literature review paper on [topic] for my master thesis. I want to search [database] for research articles on [research question]. My current query is: [draft query]. Expand the keywords and design a more constructive query.
Practice with a Research Scenario#
Use the research-based scenario below to practice more with the skills discussed in this chapter
"Evaluate Your Search" by TU Delft Library Education Support is licensed under CC-BY