Recap from English 101
Stop. Breathe. Read your assignment. If you don’t know what to research, then the first step is to look over the assignment for clues as to what your instructor wants you to write about. Try underlining or highlighting the specific requirements of the assignment to help you stay on track.
Ask questions. If anything is unclear, or if you are uncertain about anything, be sure to ask. As you work through this process, draw on the many resources available to you. You can attend your professor’s office hours, schedule an appointment with a librarian, and visit the campus Writing Center.
Choose a topic. Start big. If your topic hasn’t been assigned, choose something you’re interested in like a particular text, an author, or a larger theoretical concern. For example, if you want to write about the short story “Everyday Use,” you might start with that text, Alice Walker, or questions of identity.
Refine your focus. Now go small; narrow the scope of your project. This might mean combining topics, such as focusing on a text and a thematic concern.
Ask a research question. A reseach question is a question that you don't know the answer to when you begin your project. It should be a question that can, in theory, be answered as you conduct research. This is a precursor to your thesis statement.
Generate keywords. Unless you’re a walking thesaurus, you need something to draw ideas and words from. Use a topic overview to find an entry about your topic and pull words from it.
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Scholarly |
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Popular |
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Start with library databases.
What is a database?
It's like iTunes for research. A database is information that has been collected and organized to be easier to find.
Limiters help you narrow your search in a database. Check or uncheck these options to see only those sources you want or need.
Databases, like professors, have specializations. Consider your topic and select a broad subject area from our Databases A to Z that is closely related. Click on that subject (below, I clicked on the subject English) and scan through the suggested list of databases (as seen in the picture below the subject list) to find one or two that seem most likely to have the topic you need, in the format you need it in. For example, a newspaper database is not a good place to find scholarly or peer-reviewed articles since it only contains, well, newspapers.
When you choose a subject, a list of recommended databases appears:
Not sure what subject area fits? Try searching in Academic Search Complete, the world's largest academic database that searches thousands of journals and covers topics from most majors, to give you full-text results.
Get articles
Enter your keywords into the search box of your chosen database. Scan through the titles and summaries (abstracts) on your results list. You can find out more about a result by reading the first sentence of the abstract or by clicking on the article to see the rest of the abstract.
To find the entire article, click "Available Online".
Email articles
Send your best choices directly to your email so you don't have to go looking for them again. Click on the title of the article you like, and then use the tools on the screen to email the article directly to you. To get a computer-generated MLA citation, click the "citation" icon. 
When you click the "email" icon, a form will appear. Fill out the form with your email address and click to send the email to yourself:
Evaluate your sources (books, articles, websites, etc.) as you find them. You only want to keep and use sources that suit your topic. Here’s how you know:
OR: Use this handy chart to evaluate pages you find on the web.
Engage critically with your sources
What does that mean? Research is a conversation. How does the source talk to you and other sources you've found?
Ask questions of the source. You started this when you first evaluated each source. Now take another look at your source and go deeper. What is the author's position on the topic? Do they acknowledge alternate views of the topic? Did they miss anything?
Don't just find things; consider what the source adds to your argument. Does it give a new way to solve a problem? Does it say something another source challenges?
Contemplate how you can synthesize the source into what you want to say. How does it agree or disagree with other sources? Does it challenge your position?
Consider how the strength of the source affects your argument. Feel free to agree or disagree with parts of the source. Sometimes a source you disagree with is a better source for you because you can address why your research shows it is questionable.
Cite. As always, give a hat tip to your sources by citing them within the body of your paper and in the Works Cited at the end. To get a better sense of the nuts and bolts of citation, turn to The Coastal Writers Reference or look at the How to Cite Resources Research Guide. To master the citation process (or begin to master it, as it is quite complicated), turn to the MLA Handbook. It covers everything you will need to become an MLA style expert.
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