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Most of the article aggregator databases you have access to through Yale University Library offer options to set up alerts:

Not sure what keywords to use for your searches?

Try using a database's thesaurus feature.  You can find the preferred controlled terms for a topic, and see a definition of the term along with broader and narrower terms.  You can use the checkboxes to add terms to a search.

How can I generate a list of keywords to search in library databases?

For a general survey of the existing literature on the topic for your own knowledge, generating keywords can be as simple as coming up with synonyms for the key terms in a research question.

Ex: Research question: How do economic conditions affect women's employment?

Key terms: economic conditions, women's employment

Synonyms:

• economic conditions-  recession, high unemployment, low unemployment, volatile markets

• women - female

• employment - work, job, career

Once you have a list of synonyms, you can construct exploratory searches in a database that combine these terms into compound phrases or by using boolean operators.

Ex: recession AND female employment - will search for both phrases in article title, abstract, and full text.

(high unemployment OR low unemployment ) AND (female OR women) AND (employment OR career) - more inclusive search will bring back results with any combination of the three key terms and selected synonyms.

For a review of the literature that aims to be as comprehensive as possible, using thesauri and a conceptual framework can help operationalize the search process. Using a framework like PICO/C can help keyword searches be as thorough and reproducible as possible.

What is PICOC?

The Center for Evidence Based Management defines PICOC as, "a method used to describe the 5 elements of a searchable question."

P - Population - Who?

I - Intervention - What or how?

C - Comparison - Compared to what?

O - Outcome - What are you trying to accomplish or improve?

C - Context - In what kind of organization/ circumstances?

Ex. Research question: How does the availability of paid family leave affect how many women work outside of the home?

• Population - employed women
• Intervention - paid family leave
• Comparison - employed men, absence of paid family leave
• Outcome -  more women working outside of the home
• Context - in the United States

Once you have each element defined, you can construct a database search to represent each one. This search will be more targeted to your topic than searching without a conceptual framework.

Ex. employed women AND paid family leave policies NOT paternity leave