Our catalog is online in Accessit. See a book you want to borrow? Place it on hold; when you get the "It's ready!" email, swing by 117 to pick it up!
When doing research, most of the time there is more information available than you have time to review. You have to be smart about how you use your time and energy. When starting research, find some sources. Then:
Pick one item to start with.
DON'T try to read every word. Instead, read AROUND the text! Skim through the source - look at:
Titles
Headings
Subheadings
Pictures and their captions
Charts
Summaries (In academic works, they're called "abstracts")
Take a second to mentally summarize what you learn from looking at only those parts.
Ask yourself if the piece seems to have information you can use.
If not, move on to the next source.
If so, THEN start to read further. Keep notes about the useful info (maybe using a tool like Google Keep).
A few reminders:
If you're going out into the wilds of the Internet, consider using the following tips to help you get better results:
This search tool only looks at reliable websites. Click the link to go to the reliable search box!
This is a GREAT tool for keeping track of your open web research - super-easy to use and free!
Find out what’s hot in Google searches up to the moment. Filters let you see what’s popular in different countries over different time periods. You can even search preset categories.
Google has scanned and indexed the words in thousands and thousands of books. Display a graph showing how often certain words show up over time.