Research Strategies For Your Assignments
1. Have a system: Manage your research carefully.
- Have a system for taking notes and keeping track of the sources you use
- Make sure you know the source of every single idea or piece of information you collect so that you can evaluate and cite it
2. Know where to go for help.
- NoodleTools (log in through Okta) is a great resource for helping you cite your sources and take notes but takes some time and effort to learn
- Librarians can help! Come see us during the day Monday through Friday or during study hall Sunday through Thursday and/or use the Ask a Librarian link to request assistance with research and citations
- Take a look at the Research Process: A Step-by-Step Guide for a more detailed explanation of the parts of the research process
3. Get to know your topic: Reference books.
- Background and overviews that can be found in reference books
- Basic facts about your topic and anything related to it
- Ideas and inspiration for further investigation
4. Focus your research: Articles and books.
- More in-depth information on the topic you choose to research
- Journal, magazine, and newspaper articles, book sections, and primary sources can be found in library databases.
- The Library Catalog leads you to print books that are on the shelves in the library
- eBook Academic (library database) lets you search inside of and read more than 150,000 academic ebooks
- Articles and books not available at Schauffler Library may be borrowed from other libraries through our Interlibrary Loan service.
5. Experience your topic: Primary sources.
- Raw material from the time that an event happened
- Eyewitness accounts, photographs, diaries, documents, etc.
