How do I know which concepts in my question are key concepts?

 

What are the main ideas or concepts in your research question? What are the nouns in your question? What is the bare minimum that you want an article to discuss, given your research question? These are guiding questions that will help you determine your key concepts. There are typically 2-4 key concepts in a research question, which will vary depending on your question! For example: What is the impact of physical activity on mental health outcomes in adolescents? This question has THREE key concepts: physical activity, mental health outcomes, and adolescents. 

You might also want to consider the PICO framework. This was originally created for medical intervention questions, so it doesn't work for every type of question. With PICO you want to consider the following:

 P   Who is the patient, population or problem of interest?
 I What intervention are you interested in?
 C Do you want to compare your intervention of interest to something else? (Note: This is OPTIONAL. Do not include a comparator if not a key element of your research!).
 O What outcomes are you interested in?

 

When searching using your key concepts, try combining your first two concepts using AND and see what the results look like - you might not have to add in your other concepts because the results are narrow enough. 

If you still have questions, contact your liaison librarian here: https://www.mcgill.ca/library/contact/askus/liaison 


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  • Last updated Jun 30, 2025
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  • Answered by Sabine

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