When going about your research, you will likely use a variety of sources–anything from books and periodicals to video presentations and in-person interviews. During this step of the process, you need to decide on the resources and organizational tools you will use to keep yourself on track throughout the project. Also see “Identifying Issues for Research.”

Finding and Evaluating Sources

Now it is time to begin your research. But before diving deep into Google, it can be useful to think about what kinds of information you want and need. Your further understanding of your topic can lead you to relevant databases and resources. When you begin the research phase of your writing, you will come across an array of sources that look helpful in the beginning, but once you have a clearer idea of what you want to research, you may see that the research you once considered to use in your writing is now less relevant. Or, you may realize that your writing requires more research than you initially thought. If you know what source you need and where you can find it, you can conduct additional research quickly whenever it is necessary. To tell what sources are relevant at the stage of research, you need to know how to evaluate sources. Learning about how to find and evaluate sources is crucial to research writing. See “Finding and Evaluating Sources.”

Using Periodicals in Databases

A “periodical” is a publication that is published regularly in “periods.” They may be published daily (The New York Times), weekly (People Magazine), or monthly (Rolling Stone). Because of the time it takes to research, write, and review scholarly publications, many academic periodicals are published only a few times each year.

When you search for periodicals, be sure to distinguish among different types. Mass-market publications, such as newspapers and popular magazines, differ from scholarly publications in their accessibility, audience, and purpose.

Newspapers and magazines are written for a broader audience than scholarly journals. Their content is usually quite accessible and easy to read. Trade magazines that target readers within a particular industry may presume the reader has background knowledge, but these publications are still reader-friendly for a broader audience. Their purpose is to inform and, often, to entertain or persuade readers as well.

Scholarly or academic journals are written for a much smaller and more expert audience. The creators of these publications assume that most of their readers are already familiar with the main topic of the journal. The target audience is also highly educated. Informing is the primary purpose of a scholarly journal. While a journal article may advance an agenda or advocate a position, the content will still be presented in an objective style and formal tone. Entertaining readers with breezy comments and splashy graphics is not a priority.

Because of these differences, scholarly journals are more challenging to read. That doesn’t mean you should avoid them. On the contrary, they can provide in-depth information unavailable elsewhere. Because knowledgeable professionals carefully review the content before publication, scholarly journals are far more reliable than much of the information available in popular media. Seek out academic journals along with other resources. Just be prepared to spend a little more time processing the information.

Our library’s databases can lead you to articles in newspapers, magazines, and scholarly or technical journals. General databases cover several subject areas; subject-specific databases cover one subject area in depth. The library subscribes to some of the following databases. To use them at your home, you must log in through the off-campus authentication page. You will need your LCCC email address and password.

General databases include:

• Academic Search Complete (EBSCO database)
• Gale in Content: Opposing Viewpoints
• JSTOR
• SAGE Data
• U.S. Newstream

You can also find subject-specific and most popular research databases at https://www.lorainccc.edu/library/popular-research-databases/.

Many databases include the full text of articles. When the full text is not available, you can request the item from the database via interlibrary loan. You will find a “Request this item” option on the listing for the article in the library’s database.

Properly Use Search Keywords

To find articles on your topic in a database, start by searching with keywords, terms related to the information you need. You must have experienced too many or too few search results. Here’s a tip for refining your keyword search. Use Boolean operators. These operators allow you to combine keywords, find variations on a word, and otherwise expand or limit your results. Here are some of the ways you can use Boolean operators:

• Combine keywords with and to limit results to citations that include both keywords—for example, diet and nutrition.
• Combine keywords with or to broaden your search. For example, searching for diet or nutrition locates materials using either of those words. If your search term has one or more common synonyms, you can also use or to search for materials using any of those terms. For example, you might search for running or jogging.
• Combine keywords with not to search for the first word without the second. This can help you eliminate irrelevant results based on words that are similar to your search term. For example, searching for obesity not childhood locates materials on obesity but excludes materials on childhood obesity.
• Enclose a phrase in quotation marks to search for an exact phrase, such as “morbid obesity.”
• Use parentheses to direct the order of operations in a search string. For example, since Type II diabetes is also known as adult-onset diabetes, you could search (Type II or adult-onset) and diabetes to limit your search results to articles on this form of the disease.
• Use an asterisk (*) after a word to search for variations on a term. For instance, you might type diabet* to search for information both diabetes and diabetics.

Finding and Using Electronic Resources

With the expansion of technology and media over the past few decades, a wealth of information is available to you in electronic format. Some types of resources, such as a television documentary, may only be available electronically. Other resources—for instance, many newspapers and magazines—may be available in both print and electronic form. The following are some of the electronic sources you might consult:

• Online databases
• Popular web search engines
• Websites maintained by businesses, universities, nonprofit organizations, or government agencies
• Newspapers, magazines, and journals published on the web
• Digital books
• Radio and television programs and other audio and video recordings
• Online discussion groups
• Social media

The techniques you use to locate print resources can also help you find electronic resources efficiently. Libraries usually include CD-ROMs, audio books, and audio and video recordings among their holdings. When you use unconventional and non-academic resources such as YouTube videos and Twitter postings, you may want to discuss with your professor how to properly to use them for your research.

Beyond Google: Using Internet Search Engines Efficiently

When faced with the challenge of writing a research paper, some students rely on popular search engines as their first source of information. Typing a keyword or phrase into a search engine instantly pulls up links to dozens, hundreds, or even thousands of related websites—what could be easier? Unfortunately, despite its apparent convenience, this research strategy has the following drawbacks to consider:

• Results do not always appear in order of reliability. The first few hits that appear in search results may include sites whose content is not always reliable, such as online encyclopedias that can be edited by any user. Because websites are created by third parties, the search engine cannot tell you which sites have accurate information.
• Results may be too numerous for you to use. The amount of information available on the web is far greater than the amount of information housed within a particular library or database. Realistically, if your web search pulls up thousands of hits, you will not be able to visit every site—and the most useful sites may be buried deep within your search results.
• Search engines are not connected to the results of the search. Search engines find websites that people visit often and list the results in order of popularity. The search engine, then, is not connected to any of the results. When you cite a source found through a search engine, you do not need to cite the search engine. Only cite the source.

A general web search can provide a helpful overview of a topic and may pull up genuinely useful resources. To get the most out of a search engine, however, use strategies to make your search more efficient. Use multiple keywords and Boolean operators to limit your results. Click on the Advanced Search option under Settings on a database’s homepage to find additional options for streamlining your search. Depending on the specific search engine you use, the following options may be available:

• Limit results to websites that have been updated within a particular time frame.
• Limit results by language or country.
• Limit results by file type.
• Limit results to a particular domain type, such as .edu (school and university sites) or .gov (government sites). This is a quick way to filter out commercial sites, which can often lead to more objective results.

Use the Bookmarks or Favorites feature of your web browser to save and organize sites that look promising.

Organize your Arguments and Textual Evidence/Examples

When your research is complete, you will organize your findings and decide which sources to cite in your paper. You will also have an opportunity to evaluate the evidence you have collected and determine whether it supports your thesis, or the focus of your paper. You may decide to adjust your thesis or conduct additional research to ensure that your main argument is well supported. See “Writing with Sources.”

Continue Reading: 19.4 Compiling an Annotated Bibliography