It's that time of year again! The leaves are blowing off the trees, the heaters are kicking on, and classes are ramping up the research paper assignments.
For some people, the very word "research" evokes a pit of despair. For others, it elicits the excitement of a treasure hunt. If you're in the former category, you're not alone - we'll try to make this as painless as possible for you by providing some research steps below. (If you're in the latter category, I highly recommend becoming a librarian.)
When you're given a research assignment, the first thing to do is read it carefully. You should fully understand not only what the instructor is asking you to write about, but also the kinds of sources you need to include in your paper. If you need to cite 2-3 articles, for example, you can skip the catalog search and go straight to the databases. Here are where to find the following resources:
If you are expected to include books in your paper, you should begin by searching the Library Catalog. We do our best to work with instructors to get materials that support research assignments, so we will likely have something to help you out. If you see a physical item you want, fill out our Material Request Form and we can either email you a scanned copy of a chapter or set up a curbside pickup appointment (if the item is in the circulating collection).
A few things to keep in mind with books:
The majority of research papers require you to use articles. While you can find a few articles for free on Google Scholar, most are hidden behind a paywall. Since the library pays a ton of money to get behind this paywall, your first stop to finding articles should be the Library Databases page. Different databases have subscriptions to different journals, so it always helps to try out a few. Here are a few good databases to start a general search:
You can also check out some of the more specific subject databases. For example, Gale Literature has a lot of great articles for English papers, and psychology students can find a lot of useful information in the Psychology & Behavioral Sciences Collection.
We would love to answer this question in a single sentence. Unfortunately, we have to dedicate a few library guides to the topic. Check out our Citing Sources guide, and from there, determine whether your instructor wants you to format your paper in MLA or APA.
If you're accessing an article from the catalog or a database, most have built in citation generators for both MLA and APA. You can copy and paste these citations directly into your Works Cited page. However, you should look them over first to make sure they are accurate. The most common error is the capitalization of article titles, but some articles don't include DOIs that are present, or they use strange URLs instead of permalinks. Ask a librarian or instructor if you're not sure!
If you don't find a full text article that you really want, please fill out our Interlibrary Loan Journal Request form and we'll do our best to get it for you.
We also have library guides that cover some of the topics touched on above in further detail:
If you need further help, you can email us, drop in on our Zoom office hours, or chat with a librarian 24/7. Check out the library home page for more information.
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