Keywords
Wilfredo Cruz Yarlequé
August 2021
KEYWORDS
- They are also known as "descriptors".
- They are used to search and retrieve scientific literature in databases.
- They improve the ease of finding (visibility) a thesis.
- They are no more than five words or short phrases that represent the essential content of our work.
- They represent the entire work with few words (the "keywords").
IMPORTANCE OF KEYWORDS
- They give a brief idea about the content of the thesis.
- They indicate to the reader under which name to search for more information about the thesis.
- They are used to index, analyze and classify the thesis in repositories and internationally indexed journals.
- The correct choice of keywords allows search engines to effectively retrieve our thesis, therefore other researchers will read it and it will be cited by other authors.
HOW TO COMPOSE KEYWORDS FOR MY THESIS
- In each paragraph there is a word (key) that condenses the entire content of the paragraph. This idea also applies to the chapter, so we would say that: in each chapter there is a word that condenses the entire chapter.
- Use the skimming and scanning techniques to find the most repeated words. Skimming focuses on the words that begin and end the paragraph. Scanning is practiced by doing a quick review of all the information.
- The most recurrent grammatical categories in the composition of keywords are nouns, verbs and adjectives. Nouns say who is being talked about, verbs say what is being talked abouthow it is being talked about. These are the categories that we should look for when constructing our keywords.
- Natural language, use words and expressions freely taken from natural language.
- When in doubt, use Thesauri, which is a list of controlled words or terms used to represent concepts.
RECOMMENDATIONS
- Avoid copying words and expressions from the title.
- Avoid single words, but also long sentences.
- Keywords must make sense in the context of the research.
- Avoid grammatical, syntax, and spelling errors.
APA KEYWORD FORMAT
- APA keywords follow the following format:
- Recommended fonts: Calibri 11 pt, Arial 11 pt, Lucida Sans Unicode 10 pt, Times New Roman 12 pt, Georgia 11 pt.
- Placement: On the second page of the document, one line after finishing the summary.
- Label: the heading “Keywords:” must be written in italics, not in bold, and with the same indentation as a normal paragraph.
- Text: Keywords begin to be written immediately after the tag:
- In lowercase (proper names in uppercase),
- Without italics or bold,
- Each keyword or phrase will be separated by a comma and a space,
- Without final punctuation after the final keyword,
- There is no established order, not necessarily alphabetical.