Terms of art are those that are used in a particular industry or field. The experts in a given field typically use a shared vocabulary. You will want to recognize these concepts and use them in your own searches. A very simple example is global warming. If you run a simple Google search, you will get over 400 million results. Climate change will bring you over 700 million results! However, a search for the Albedo Effect, which regards absorption of sunlight and radiation, brings you 15 million. Looking up the Keeling Curve, which measures the accumulation of carbon dioxide, nets just 1.5 million. These are terms of art that are used in the discussion of climate change. As you uncover particular terms of art, jot them down in a notebook so that you can do separate searches on each of them, as needed.
If you want to do research on a new or emerging field of study, there may be a wide range of terms of art that are used. If you are interested in the topic of fake news, for example, you would want to search for related topics such as conspiracy theories or media manipulation. Disinformation campaigns, misinformation, and, following the effects of scientific data manipulation related to the coronavirus, “infodemic,” have all emerged as popular terms of art. Once you read more deeply into the subject matter, you will find other terms of art, such as social media echo chambers, filter bubbles, and confirmation bias, which are important to understand if you want to get a full grasp of how fake news emerges and its effects.