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They Can't Read Your Research If They Can't Find It! The Transportation Research Thesaurus Can Help Fix That

by Ken Winter on 2021-04-08T15:30:38-04:00 in Research, VDOT Library | 0 Comments

Screen capture demonstrating the Technical Report Documentation Page.

If you've ever wondered how to select "Key Words" for Field 17 of a Technical Report Documentation page (above), or if you want to increase the odds your journal article will be found, this NEW VIDEO from TRB walks you through the process of selecting Key Words using the TRT!

 

Can we talk about "Key Words" for a second? 


Yes, such discussions are the things that give librarians joy in life, but bear with me a second, because if you do transportation research for a living (or have ever dipped a toe in those waters) chances are you want people to find what you've written, am I right? 

 

That's true for every VTRC report since 1972 (when federally funded reports started requiring a Technical Report Documentation page, shown above), but it applies to any article you submit to TRB, ASCE or most professional or academic journal you want to publish your ideas in. TRB and other publishers rely on the 4-8 well-selected "Key words" (core concepts that precisely describe your research), in order to "index" your work and make it "findable" in online databases, so that anyone who types a few terms into their favorite database or search engine will discover the relevant works.  

 

What happens if the author does not supply such terms to explain what the work is really about? 

 

If you're really lucky you've got a great editor to help.  But at the end of the day if no Key Word terms are provided BY YOU, odds are a librarian or indexer will select some FOR YOU. That could work out just fine, but be advised that some of those "indexers" are not people but automated "machine indexing systems." While many of indexers are capable and talented humanoid life forms, truth is the indexing of your research may also be done by student assistants or whatever person got "assigned" the task.  I'm not casting shade here.  Those folks may do an adequate job, but even most indexing experts in transportation have only a fraction of the subject expertise YOU have about your topic as a professional, am I right? 

 

So why not give those folks a hand by proving terms informed by your first-hand expertise?  If your response is: "Because I don't know what terms are best to use." or "I can't figure out which is the most widely accepted terms to describe my work..." well you are not alone. We get that question at the VDOT Research Library sometimes, and we've got good news. 

 

TRB created this great new instructional video that teaches you how pick Key Words using an awesome online tool called the Transportation Research Thesaurus (TRT).  The TRT was created to provide the transportation world a common and consistent language that will help your peers discover your find your publications in the TRID database, however, any author can use the TRT and the strategy outlined in the video works for any type of work being considered for publication by any professional or academic journal as well. 

 

That's because TRT was created 20+ years ago as a comprehensive tool to serve all modes and all functions of transportation. Today's TRT is large (nearly 13,000 terms), providing a vocabulary of well-defined terms and it has been painstaking maintained and improved upon by TRB and other expert indexers since it was created. TRT is free to use and it has thousands of definitions. Plus, it provides "preferred terms" for your consideration, and as the video points out, is great for steering you away from generic terms to "broader" terms or "narrower" terms or "related" terms that might not occur to you, including terms none of us could have envisioned 20 years ago, like: Blockchains, Data Cleaning and Unmanned Underwater Vehicles

 

Example: Your research addresses vehicle "Collisions" but should you use that term or "Accidents" or "Crashes" or what? What is the best key word to use for that concept?

Answer: According to TRT, "Crashes" is the preferred general term instead of other general terms like "Accidents" or "Collisions" however, consider using more specific terms like "Ran off road crashes" (whodathunkit?) or "Rollover crashes" if they apply to your work.  For that matter, consider mode-specific terms if too (like "Bicycle Crashes") or a narrower term like "Pedestrian Vehicle Crashes" if that kind of term will focus more precisely on your work.  

 

Since the TRT is a "thesaurus" it has some handy interface features like a Hierarchical view (showing you the relationship hierarchy between terms) as well as an Alphabetic view, and Key Word In Context view.  That much said, I usually find myself starting most TRT searches from the the main search page

 

Confused?  Mind blown?

 

We're here to help...particularly Gil Kenner, your resident expert on transportation research indexing and cataloging.

 

Ken Winter
(434) 962-8979
VDOT Research Library


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