Research Skills
Research Skills
Embedded Files
"Research is seeing what everybody else has seen and thinking what nobody else has thought." - Albert Szent-Györgyi
Choosing a Research Topic
Narrowing Down Your Topic
Narrowing Down Your Topic
Why & When To Cite
Why & When To Cite
Helpful Techniques to Optimize Searches
Use Advanced Search option when searching databases
Using Boolean terms "AND" or "OR" to help narrow or broaden your search.
Using "NOT" or quotation marks (" ") will help narrow down your search.
Using truncation (*) or the Nesting ( ) can either broaden or narrow your search.
Use a Thesauraus or Encyclopedia
Think of all the possible ways to express your topic. Brainstorm until you've exhausted all possibilities. An article about global warming may not have the phrase "global warming" anywhere in it. Instead, you may find that the title contains the words "surface temperature records" and a cataloger has assigned it the subject heading "climate change."
To get the best results, use the word OR inside parentheses.
(AIDS or HIV) and (television or movies or motion pictures)
(teen* or adolescen*) and (girl* or female) and aggression
Don't limit yourself to just one database or one set of search results.
Search a database that covers many subjects. The same search phrase entered in two different databases may bring up very different results. If your topic encompasses more than one major subject area-business and art, for example- try searching both a business database and an art database. Try different phrases; try the same search across multiple databases. Don't be content with the results of one search.
Citation & Formatting Resources
What is NoodleTools
Easily create citations in MLA and then export them directly to your Google Drive account
Plan, gather, and organize your research using electronic note cards
Analyze, synthesize and incorporate your sources into your paper
Helpful Links
Excellent resource for all your paper formatting questions.
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