Part of any good search strategy is the careful selection of keywords. Understanding how hypernyms and hyponyms will affect your search puts real power into your hands. As you build a query, be aware that use of nyms will narrow or broaden your search. This knowledge helps you form an effective query.
Find those Nyms!
Hyponym -- word that describes things more specifically
Hypernym -- word that describes things more generally
Using hyponyms will narrow a search and retrieve more specific results.
Using hypernyms will widen the results of a search.
In general, narrowing a search is just what you want to do. As you generate keywords, always be thinking of hyponyms you might use to get better specific results.
If you're not getting sufficient results from your current keyword, expand the meaning of the keyword by using a hypernym.
Hyponyms for car include:
Ford, Passat, Nascar, etc.
Hypernyms for car include:
vehicle, transportation, etc.
If you don't know the specific words an expert might use, search for the subject matter and the keywords glossary OR vocabulary.
Practice it now:
Which of the following are hyponyms that will get you closer to expert information about earthquakes?
aftershock, disaster, earth, epicenter, hazard,
history, hypocenter, nature, Ring of Fire,
seismology, tsunami
