Getting Started with Research
This guide outlines strategies and tools that will help you complete your research and multimodal projects for English 110.
- Developing a Topic: As you start your research, give yourself some time to gather background information and think through different components of your topic. This will help you come up with a creative, engaging topic to investigate!
- Searching for Sources: From DELCAT to library databases to the open web, you have a lot of options for search tools.
- Evaluating: Many components go into deciding if a source is relevant and useful for your topic. Doing an in-depth evaluation of your sources during the research process will help you use sources more effectively in your writing.
- Creating Multimedia: When you need to create a podcast, infographic, or other multimedia, it helps to plan your creation process and know about all of the tools available to you.
- Citing: Giving credit to your sources is an important part of participating in scholarly conversations.
- Getting Help: All researchers need help sometimes! There are several options for learning research skills and getting help from librarians.
Doing Background Research
When you start a research project, background research can help you:
- Understand the size and scope of a potential topic
- Find subtopics that interest you
- Learn key terminology for the topic
- Identify influential people and events
- Discover highly-cited sources about the topic
Resources for Background Research
In addition to doing a general online search or consulting online reference sources like Wikipedia, try these library resources to find background information about your topic:
- Credo Reference This link opens in a new window
Articles from encyclopedias, dictionaries, and other reference books. Covers all major academic areas. An excellent place to start when learning the basics of any topic. Will help focus your topic, find keywords and people, and discover more in-depth books and articles. Images, audio and video files are included.
- Global Newsstream This link opens in a new window
Recent global news content, as well as archives. Content from newspapers, newswires and news sites in full-text format. Provides large collections of news from the U.S., Canada, Europe, Africa, Asia, Latin America and Australia. (Coverage: 1980 --)
- Opposing Viewpoints This link opens in a new window
The pros and cons of today's hottest social issues. Supports science, social studies, current events, and language arts classes. Allows 5 concurrent users.
- CQ Researcher This link opens in a new window
Comprehensive reporting and analysis on “hot topics” in the news. Each single-themed report is researched and written by a seasoned journalist, footnoted and professionally fact checked. (Coverage: 1923 --)
Strategies for Exploring a Topic
- Video: Exploring Your TopicSome sources offer a broad scope on a topic, while others offer a narrow scope. Learn how you can effectively use broad and narrow scope sources at different points in your research process.
- Video: Analyzing Source PerspectiveEven while you're exploring and developing your topic, it's important to consider the perspective a source brings to your research. Learn three strategies for analyzing the perspective of a source.
- Infographic: Using Google Scholar
Learn how Google Scholar can be a useful tool as you're exploring your topic and beginning research, as well as limitations to watch out for.