Effective research takes practice, patience and perseverance.This page will quickly walk you through starting your research and finding information sources that you might use for your projects and papers.
Selecting a topic is an important part of the research process, and it is where all good academic researchers start. The following video outlines how to select a topic and refine it, and what you can do when a topic doesn't work.
In the video, Jennie had problems locating the right types of sources for her initial topic idea. It is important to understand the different source types used in academic writing and understand the differences.
Read this short excerpt about Popular, Professional & Scholarly Sources.
Now watch this video about the scholarly/peer review process.
Once you know what you want to research, you need to develop a strategy for your research. Before jumping online or right into a database, take a few minutes to assess the types of information you need, what terms you can use to describe your topic, and how you can use these terms to most effectively search for the information you need. Read the following brief explanations to help get an understanding of how to be an effective researcher.
Many students struggle with searching in library databases. These are the best sources of information for academic research especially if you are required to use scholarly and/or peer-reviewed articles for your research. Library databases are not like Google or other web browsers. The following videos explain more about how databases work and give tips on how to best search databases to get just what you need for your research projects.
