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Research Consultation: You can book a thirty minute (or longer) meeting with a librarian to map out your research process! This consultation can help you choose and refine a topic, search for background information, and devise a search strategy that you can use to find the resources you need to complete your assignment. You instructor may recommend a research consultation, but even if they don't it's always a good idea to help you get started. Look here for available times!
Research Question: What are you trying to find out? Your research question reflects the main idea of your paper or assignment. It will guide every step of your research. The research you conduct is your attempt to answer this question.Choose a topic that you're interested in
Research is more fun and more relevant to your life if you care about what you're learning.
Keep it relevant
Read the assignment and make sure the topic you choose meets your instructor's requirements.
Find the question
Reference Source: A broad resource for basic facts and background. They offer a good entry point to the basic information you will need to learn as you start to explore your topic.
Reference sources include: Biographies, Encyclopedias, Dictionaries, Atlases, and Handbooks.
Why should you search for background information?
Basic facts: The articles you read and cite in your paper will assume you already know the basic facts about your topic. These are the people, dates, places, and laws related to it. You need to know these facts before you read academic articles to ensure you know what the writers are talking about!
Vocabulary & Keywords: Academic writing may use words and terms for a topic that are different from those we use every day. By researching the background of a topic, you'll learn which terms academic writers use to discuss your topic.
Narrowing you topic: Most students start off with a topic that's too big to cover in a five page paper. By doing thorough background research, you can identify sub-topics that might be easier to work with.
The following Library Resources will help you find Background Information:
The 4 Ws
Guide yourself through your Background Research by answering the following four questions:
Who
Who are the people or groups relevant to your topic? This can include companies or even fictional characters!
Example: If you're writing about video games, this might include gamers, game designers, Hideo Kojima, Blizzard, or even Nathan Drake.
What
What are the major events, laws, controversies, or issues related to your topic?
Example: If you're researching health care reform, this might include The Affordable Care Act, generic drug prices, or access to care.
When
When have major events happened to affect your topic? This can include dates, eras, or even age ranges relevant to your topic.
Example: If you're learning about school uniforms, this might include 1963, the early 2000s, or teenagers.
Where
Where are the places most affected by your topic? Which countries, regions, or states? Does your topic affect urban or rural regions more?
Example: If you're researching the minimum wage, this might include New York City, California, the Pacific North West, or urban centers.
If you need some help getting started...
Write your research question down. Underline the main ideas in that question.
Example: How does aging affect memory loss?
For each concept, make a list of keywords related to it. Use synonyms, and go back to your background research to find academic vocabulary and terms.
Example: Aging, elderly, seniors, aged, growing older, senescent, old age, geriatric...
Identify keywords with...
Academic OneFile's Visualization Tool.
Or use this work sheet to guide you:
An activity to help you develop your search strategy.
Find trade journal articles, eBooks, newspaper articles, and more in the databases linked below. These links will take you to high quality search engines that will help you find the resources you need.Search all of our databases at once using the Library's Summon tool!
Or search these databases individually!
Sometimes you need material that can't be found online. The Library catalog at CCCC has books, movies, and other media available for checkout.
*Helpful hint: if you can't find the tile or author you're looking for in a CCCC Library, try selecting "All CCLINC Libraries" from the drop down menu to see if you can find it in another community college in North Carolina. If so, we can place a hold and get the book for you in a few days!
University Libraries Learning (UNC Chapel Hill). "Research Tutorial Starting Your Search in the Right Place." YouTube, 9 Aug. 2021, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D8kTXSd5jLE.
Yavapai College Library.. "What Are Databases and Why You Need them." YouTube, 29 Sept. 2011, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q2GMtIuaNzU&t=5s.
This is when you take someone's words and present them as your own with no changes or attribution.
See the example below.
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Edgar Allen Poe is best remembered for his dark tales of the macabre, but many readers aren't aware of his personal political views and how they informed his writing. Poe did not write extensively or comprehensively about the abolitionist movement. We do know some of his thoughts on the issue from book reviews that he published in various publications in the 1830s and 40s. Much of his criticism of abolitionists concerned not the essential principles of the cause but what he viewed as the anti-slavery fanaticism of many Northern editors and writers that prevented the publishing success of Southern identified writers like himself. |
"Like most of the political issues of his day, Poe did not write extensively or comprehensively about the abolitionist movement. What little that is known of his views of abolitionism is recorded primarily in book reviews that he published in various publications in the 1830s and 40s. Much of his criticism of abolitionists concerned not the essential principles of the cause but what he viewed as the anti-slavery fanaticism of many Northern editors and writers that prevented the publishing success of Southern identified writers like himself. "1 1Christian Jones, Paul. "The Danger of Sympathy: Edgar Allan Poe's ''Hop-Frog'' and the Abolitionist Rhetoric of Pathos." Journal of American Studies, vol. 35, no. 2, 2001., pp. 239-254.
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Using phrases or sentences from another author's works and including them in your writing without quote marks or citations.
See the example below.
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Teens with strong social support networks are less likely to engage in risky sexual behaviors and are more likely to experience unintended pregnancy. Two important factors in social support networks are parental involvement and the peers that teens spend time with. Teens with parents who are more involved tend to choose to delay sexual initiation, whereas teens whose friends engage in risky sexual behaviors are more likely to engage in the same behaviors. |
"Social support networks are important for the health of adolescents. One important part of social networks for adolescents is parental involvement. Adolescents whose parents are more involved tend to choose to delay sexual initiation and are at a lower risk for unintended pregnancy (Hoskins & Simons, 2015; Viner et al., 2012). In addition to parental involvement, the peers that teens spend time with also have an impact on pregnancy rates. Females who have friends that engage in risky sexual behavior are more likely to engage in the same behaviors and are more likely to experience unintended pregnancy (Hoskins & Simons, 2015)."1 1Danawi, Hadi,PhD.M.P.H., Zenobia Bryant M.P.H., and Tala Hasbini M.S. "Targeting Unintended Teen Pregnancy in the U.S." International Journal of Childbirth Education 01 2016: 28-31. ProQuest. Web. 10 Aug. 2016 .
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Rewording, rearranging, and re-writing in your own words another's author's work while maintaining the same line of argument or idea without a citation or attribution.
See the example below.
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The killing of the albatross is especially shocking because it seems to come out of nowhere, with no motive on the part of the mariner. Such an emphasis on the lack of motive or foresight is especially interesting given Coleridge's own subscription to the Unitarian moral theory, and the emphasis placed on motives in the designation of responsibility within that moral code. |
"It is within this already disoriented field that the crucial moment of the narrative occurs: the slaying of the albatross. There are two especially strange elements to this killing. Firstly, as many critics have pointed out, it happens without any apparent foresight or motive. In one stanza, the Mariner is describing vespers in the moonlight; in the next, the Wedding Guest is shocked by the terror in the Mariner's face: the killing simply happens. This is particularly interesting given the weight that the Unitarian moral theory to which Coleridge subscribed at the time placed upon motives, since the determinative effects of motives were, in their compatibilist analysis of volition, the only marks of responsibility."1 1Stokes, Christopher. "'My Soul in Agony': irrationality and Christianity in The Rime of the Ancient Mariner." Studies in Romanticism 50.1 (2011): 3+. Literature Resource Center. Web. 10 Aug. 2016.
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Did you know...
It's possible to plagiarize yourself? Reusing your own work from a previous class or assignment is plagiarism too!
See the example below.
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The Supreme Court of the United States of America serves an important function as one of the three branches of the federal government. The court hears many types of cases,a nd their rulings can have far reaching effects. For example, in 2007, the court heard a case in which the state of Arizona issued a proposal to the Environmental Protection Agency, requesting that pollution permitting authority be handed over to the state. |
The first case, the National Association of Home Builders v. Defenders of Wildlife, exemplifies cases in which the Supreme Court has been called on to interpret the exact meaning of the ESA and its limitations. In this case, the state of Arizona issued a proposal to the Environmental Protection Agency, requesting that pollution permitting authority be handed over to the state.
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This Interactive Tutorial from the University of Leeds link will open in a new windowwill help you learn to recognize different forms of plagiarism, as well as identify good and bad practices related to writing.
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