Research Guides: Eng 1A Guide to Research with Library Resources (Dual Enrollment): Research Tutorials

Research Topics

Review your assignment instructions: What kind of assignment/essay is it? Do you need to take a stance? Make an argument? Provide facts or data?
Will you need library sources? What kind?
Use the Picking a Topic tutorial to help you narrow down your ideas and find keywords.
Use Opposing Viewpoints to browse topics and get ideas.
Watch the Developing a Research Topic video

Learn how to use the databases in the Using Library Databases tutorial
Watch the Researching using Academic Search Complete video to see a demonstration
Try different searches with different keywords; this will help you find lots of different kinds of results
Keep track of your research using the Research Log organizer
Learn to use other library databases by visiting the Databases guide with how-to videos

Academic Search Complete This link opens in a new window
Full-text access to articles out of academic journals as well as general interest magazines with excellent coverage in a wide variety of disciplines. Watch the How To Use Academic Search Complete video.
Opposing Viewpoints This link opens in a new window
Extensive list of sample topics on front page leading to gateways of full-text resources including: book chapters, viewpoint essays, news, magazine and academic journal articles as well as some statistical data. Watch the How to Use Opposing Viewpoints video.
OneSearch This link opens in a new window
Find books, ebooks, articles, videos, and more! Watch the How To Use OneSearch video.

Scholarly articles are published in Academic Journals, and have been Peer Reviewed ("Scholarly", "Academic" and "Peer Reviewed" mean roughly the same thing!)
You can find scholarly articles using JSTOR or the "Peer Reviewed" limiter in Academic Search Complete
Use the Finding and Evaluating Scholarly Sources tutorial to learn about evaluating and finding scholarly sources
Watch the Scholarly and Popular Sources video for a brief overview of scholarly vs popular sources

Use Wikipedia to get a background on your topic (but don't cite it as a source for your paper!)
When using Google, be sure to carefully evaluate the credibility of your sources
Use the Evaluating Websites tutorial to help you decide whether a website is trustworthy or not
Think about Author, Publisher, References, and Editorial Process when reading information on the web
Use Opposing Viewpoints to find results similar to Google, but more trustworthy!

A Works Cited or Reference page list your sources and citations.
Use the Citing Sources and Avoiding Plagiarism tutorial to learn more about plagiarism and citing your sources
Watch this How to Avoid Plagiarim video to learn more