Inventio Research Tips

Undergraduate research can sometimes feel like visiting a busy market in another country. One may not be fluent with the foreign disciplines of History, Philosophy or Business. The meal one wants to cook may seem simple, but can easily be overwhelming if one does not know where to find the correct ingredients. Within this market, all the stalls, stores, and stands are unknown and each place may or may not contain the called-for ingredients. Rather than explore the market one store at a time, a guide to the facility is a necessity.

Catholic University’s local market is called the Washington Research Library Consortium (WRLC), which is a research alliance of eight Washington D.C. area universities. Our local market contains high quality locations, such as Georgetown and George Washington’s Politics departments, in addition to our own high quality Theology and Religious Studies resources. The WRLC is easily navigated by Mullen Library’s online search tool. Using Boolean phrases, a new cook can simplify the marketplace by looking for exact phrases or by excluding other phrases. One can narrow fields by medium, such as articles, books, or movies, or by date, author, or language. One significant yet lesser known feature is the tool used to sort through works by what sources they cite and which sources cite them. While humanities students gain benefits from this addition, social science students can vastly improve their efficiency with this feature. 

Despite the WRLC’s intellectual sprawl, it is ultimately composed of only eight universities. To overcome this limitation Catholic University and its WRLC peers engage in the Interlibrary Loan system (ILL), which connects a majority of the United States’ research institutes together. While D.C. schools are limited by their relatively narrow scope, there are more than likely several universities across the country that specialize in one niche subject. While purchasing the newest publications is impossible for any school to maintain, the resources of the nation’s universities will be more likely to contain these resources.

The Catholic University, alongside the WRLC, is blessed to be neighbors with the Library of Congress itself, one of the world’s greatest libraries. The Library of Congress is unique because it is both a warehouse of knowledge catalog of new volumes. Unlike the ILL, which may require weeks of transportation, the Library of Congress can deliver volumes over the course of days, if not hours. In under an hour of a Metro ride, every Catholic University student has the unique opportunity to visit one of the world’s greatest intellectual marketplaces.

The internet, needless to say, has completely revolutionized the undergraduate research process. In addition to a lack of familiarity with academic research, the other major hurdle to undergraduate research is time. Internet tools, such as the WRLC, can quickly gather information and make sorting through databases, catalogs, and research an achievable process. The WRLC is not the only intellectual marketplace as several other non-profit organizations contribute to the academic marketplace. Project Gutenberg, for example, is an ambitious webpage that has a wealth of free books, primarily public domain works and their translations. Project Gutenberg has some flaws because it is hard to cite and many professors call for specific translations, which may not be present on the site. 

Wikipedia, with good reason, is considered a risky research tool. While it is objectively true that Wikipedia is inferior to academic sources, the website itself can point to strong academic sources. At the bottom of most Wikipedia pages, there are links to references and further reading. While one should not necessarily trust Wikipedia’s analysis, the resources listed can provide a basic starting point for the research process by pointing out some seminal works or ideas. 

The marketplace of knowledge is constantly changing as new sellers arrive and older stores reinvent their offerings. Digital spaces have created portals across the world or even created new marketplaces for information. Research has a funny way of creating the need for more research. The marketplace of knowledge grows every day and, with rapidly evolving technology, the acquisition of knowledge has new challenges and new mediums. One can look at academic cookbooks, talk with expert chefs, or go to cooking classes, but the most important thing for an undergraduate researcher is to get into the marketplace of knowledge and the kitchen of research. Through trial and error, undergraduate researchers develop their skills, create meaningful research, and contribute to the rapidly growing intellectual marketplace.