How to find out the terms used for a topic, so that I can find the appropriate literature on it?

Question

My English is not perfect, moreover I am not familiar with the exact phrases for a topic of research or a technical term in the literature

I have some ideas or projects done, if I knew the exact word for the topic to which my idea belongs I could search better and find more appropriate resources and write better papers

For example suppose I have done an image processing projects which detects damages of an equipment in a manufacture, I thought its belong to the fault detection area but then I found the fault detection could be something more general or a different area ..... and defect detection is more close to the topic

As you see I need a website where I can mention what I have done or what is my idea and get the research area where I can find the proper resources

Answer 1

As Aleksandar says, you do need to learn the terminology in order to search effectively for articles. And in fact, you'll need to know the terminology in order to understand those articles. When I'm exploring a new subject area, I don't start with the journal articles; I start with books, web tutorials, etc., to get the basics.

For learning the terminology, I also suggest reading the relevant articles in Wikipedia or Scholarpedia. They will also have links to journal articles; get hold of those articles and see what keywords they use. Anytime you find a useful article, note the keywords, and what journal it's in. This will help you find other useful articles, and places where you might submit your own articles in future.

Also, your college librarian may be able to help you figure out some of the keywords to use. They usually know a little about a wide variety of topics, at least enough to have some ideas of what search terms might be useful. If you set up an appointment, they may be able to spend some time with you, helping you find some sample articles and working with you to figure out a good search strategy.

Answer 2

I don't think you can find a place where someone will tell you what you need to search for, i.e. you have to know what you want to find in order to find it. If you are not familiar with the terminology of your field, I suggest reading a couple of standard textbooks; while reading them, you will encounter most of the terms that are relevant to the field.

You should also keep in mind that many fields (fault detection being one of them) are quite broad, so you usually have to spend some time refining your search keywords in order to find what you are looking for.

Anyway, the bottom line is that you have to master the terminology before reading and writing papers.