The key concepts of your topic will provide some initial keywords. You can then think of some alternative keywords using synonyms, acronyms, and alternate spellings. This video below gives a very short demonstration of this.

This video has closed captions.

Try combining your keywords in different ways. This can help you broaden or narrow your search an ensure your results are more relevant.

Using the advanced search option on Library Search gives you more control over your search. You can connect words in different ways – there are three Boolean operators that help you connect words – AND, OR, NOT.  Below is an example of a search combinations.

We want articles that are about reading challenges or reading barriers relating to adults. 

In this search we have first used the keyword "reading" and chosen that the word must be in the title of the resources being searched. We've used AND to combine that term with either of the words "barriers OR challenges" notice the Boolean operator OR is typed in the line between the terms rather than using the drop-down. This is because we need our search to have reading and challenges or barriers in resource. We've then also added AND with the word "adult" in any field.