When you begin a research paper, the most difficult task you’ll have is conducting the actual research. If you’ve written one in the past, you’ll know that finding somewhere with reliable sources is tricky in and of itself, but then you have to look for sources that actually address the argument you’re posing in your paper. It can seem impossible when you’re looking at a 40-page scholarly article to decide whether it will be useful to you, but hopefully by using these tips, research will be made easier for you, and you’ll be better able to determine which sources you should and shouldn’t use based on content, reliability, credibility, and accuracy.
Tips for conducting research
1. Have an idea for a thesis
Although you might not have a completely solidified idea starting out, you should at least know the general topic and know why you’re interested in that topic. Knowing why you’re interested in a general idea will lead you to finding that “seed idea” inside of your “watermelon idea,” as my teachers used to say. The more specific your topic, the easier it will be for you to know what to search for, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that you’ll be able to find information on that topic either, as it could be too narrow to have been written about by scholars. Make sure you are flexible when formulating your idea, and don’t be afraid to let the sources shape your thesis, especially if your original idea isn’t yielding results.
2. Use Wikipedia to get started
Your teachers have probably told you from day one that using Wikipedia is strictly not allowed when writing a research paper. However, it’s an extremely useful tool starting out to help you either find a research topic or get a basic understanding of what your topic involves and what exactly you should be looking for in more scholarly sources.
3. Use quotation marks to search an exact phrase
You might know this already, but if you want to search for a phrase rather than individual words, put your search in quotation marks. For example, if you’re searching for information on monarch butterflies, the search engine will automatically look for the words individually, so you might get some results that are only about monarchs and only about butterflies but not both.
4. Use online databases for reliable, scholarly information
Your school likely has access to online databases full of research materials. These are excellent places to find the majority of your sources because you can be sure that they are reliable.
5. Read through abstracts and summaries for article content
It’s difficult to say whether an online article will hold the information you’re looking for based on the title alone, and it might be too long for you to look through in its entirety just to see if you need it, so read the summary or abstract if there is one before diving into the actual text.
6. Control-F is your friend
If you’re not sure if a source includes information that you need, search for keywords within the text using the command key shortcut Control-F. This will open the “find” window for you to search for words throughout a document. If you want to know if an article on benefits of exercise specifically mentions eating habits, try typing in words like “eating,” “food,” or “diet.”
7. Use the bibliographies of a reliable source to find more sources
If you find a source that holds reliable, accurate, and crucial information, look to its bibliography to find more sources like it. One great source probably uses other great sources, so doing a little “bibliography mining” will help you find more information about topics that are specifically within the original source.
8. Use library resources…
On top of databases provided by your school, you might be able to access some free databases at a public library. You should also look for books about your topic to use as sources, as these are also guaranteed to be accurate and reliable. Although it takes more time to read through books, there are ways to quickly figure out if you’ll be able to find what you’re looking for within a book. Start by reading the preface or introduction to get an idea of what the book contains, and then look over the table of contents to see whether there are specific sections that reference your topic. This takes a little more digging, but once you find the information, it’s typically concise enough for you to get a few good quotes and chunks of information.
9. … including human resources
All libraries have librarians or research aides, so if you’re stumped on how to find the information you’re looking for, talk to someone. Even if you’re just starting your research, it’s a great idea to ask what databases and online resources you can access through the library so that you can cover all of your bases.
10. Don’t disregard sources that hold the same information as others
Even though you might look at a source and think that it holds almost exactly the same information as another source, that doesn’t mean it isn’t valuable. Information is given quickly and concisely, so there might be one key piece of information that you don’t see anywhere else even though everything else about the source seems familiar. You should also be looking for quotes to use in your paper, so getting as many sources as possible can’t hurt in helping you get more voices and ways to phrase something.
11. Figure out how you prefer to read sources
Print or digital? Once you know your reading preference, make sure you have a way to take notes and store your sources. You should be taking notes as you read and highlighting quotes so that you don’t forget where any information is or why you want to use it. I prefer printed sources over digital because it’s easy to take notes right on the paper rather than using separate sheets, notecards, or a word document.
12. Find a way to organize your sources that works for you
As soon as you begin looking for sources, you’re going to need a way to keep track of them whether they’re printed or saved digitally. Organize them in whatever way makes the most sense to you. In the past, I’ve tried a few methods of organizations for printed sources, and I’ve created a mildly-chaotic, though helpful, system. I use different highlighters to color-code sources based on the topics each source covers. This works best if you have an outline for your paper already determined because you already know how many topics/colors you’ll keep track of, and you can see that you have enough information for each point. If you don’t have an outline or an idea of what topics you’ll be covering, this can still be helpful as a way of marking the similarities between sources. You can also highlight specific information within the articles using this system so that you know where in your paper each piece will fit. If I know, for example, that I want a paper on gun control to include pros, cons, statistics, and solutions, I can color code all information I find for each of those sections.
13. Get both sides of an argument
When you’re writing a research paper, you need to take a stand, but you also can’t entirely write off a point that diverges from your own. You can either agree with part of an opposing argument or disagree with all of it, but whatever you choose, talk about the arguments of the opposing argument. Your paper will be more credible and seem less biased than if you only talked about the evidence to support your own point. If you’re writing that gun control paper, make sure you include the pros and cons so that you can show you’re not just someone with a political right- or left-wing agenda.
Tips for determining a source’s reliability, accuracy, and credibility
1. Check the publication date and the dates of sources in the bibliography
If a source is from 2000, it’s probably not as accurate as something published in 2012. Information about any given topic changes over the years, so anything that’s more than five years old might not be accurate anymore. Be wary of using anything too old, and be sure that everything seems up-to-date or at least not proven false in later articles. Also make sure that an article doesn’t use old resources for its own information. Even if something was published last year, if it relies on information from 1990, it’s probably not accurate.
2. Cross-reference information for accuracy
Make sure that you double-check every piece of information you intend to use in your paper. Especially if you’re using sources that don’t come from a database or website hosting scholarly articles, you should keep an eye out for inaccuracies. If something seems questionable, look it up using a different source.
3. Check for the author’s or publisher’s credibility
If you can’t find an author or publisher anywhere, you’re probably not looking at a credible source. If you can find a name or publisher, search it in Google to see what else may be published by that person or publisher or what people are saying about their work.
4. Watch out for one-sided or biased arguments
Just like you don’t want to only include your argument in your paper, you don’t want to use sources that focus too heavily on one argument. While there’s no problem with taking a stance, if an article appears biased or completely ignores the opposing side of the issue, it might not be reliable or objective. Instead, look for sources that address the opposing view, as you should be doing in your own paper.
5. Understand a source’s tone and intended audience
You should know who an article is meant to target so that you can tell that the information is of a high quality. If the information seems to be written for a younger audience, it probably isn’t scientific enough for your purposes. If it’s meant to sway someone in a certain direction, it will probably form its argument accordingly, so watch out for the way an author writes. If he or she seems to be trying to convince you of something with which you disagree, you’re probably not the target audience. If you seem to agree with almost everything, be aware that you could be the target audience, and you might be liable to believe information that isn’t actually reliable but just fits into what you’re used to thinking is correct.
6. Is there enough evidence to support an argument?
Looking for specific evidence to support a point goes along with searching for biases, tone, and audience. An article needs to be factual rather than opinionated, and if it doesn’t offer enough evidence to back up its argument, then whatever point it’s making might not cover all of the information that’s necessary for it to be deemed reliable. Be sure that each source you choose to use provides sufficient evidence to support its argument, just as your own paper should incorporate sufficient evidence as well.
-Hope Swedeen
How do you organize your research? What are some tricks you use to figure out which sources are reliable and which aren’t?
Tips for conducting research
1. Have an idea for a thesis
Although you might not have a completely solidified idea starting out, you should at least know the general topic and know why you’re interested in that topic. Knowing why you’re interested in a general idea will lead you to finding that “seed idea” inside of your “watermelon idea,” as my teachers used to say. The more specific your topic, the easier it will be for you to know what to search for, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that you’ll be able to find information on that topic either, as it could be too narrow to have been written about by scholars. Make sure you are flexible when formulating your idea, and don’t be afraid to let the sources shape your thesis, especially if your original idea isn’t yielding results.
2. Use Wikipedia to get started
Your teachers have probably told you from day one that using Wikipedia is strictly not allowed when writing a research paper. However, it’s an extremely useful tool starting out to help you either find a research topic or get a basic understanding of what your topic involves and what exactly you should be looking for in more scholarly sources.
3. Use quotation marks to search an exact phrase
You might know this already, but if you want to search for a phrase rather than individual words, put your search in quotation marks. For example, if you’re searching for information on monarch butterflies, the search engine will automatically look for the words individually, so you might get some results that are only about monarchs and only about butterflies but not both.
4. Use online databases for reliable, scholarly information
Your school likely has access to online databases full of research materials. These are excellent places to find the majority of your sources because you can be sure that they are reliable.
5. Read through abstracts and summaries for article content
It’s difficult to say whether an online article will hold the information you’re looking for based on the title alone, and it might be too long for you to look through in its entirety just to see if you need it, so read the summary or abstract if there is one before diving into the actual text.
6. Control-F is your friend
If you’re not sure if a source includes information that you need, search for keywords within the text using the command key shortcut Control-F. This will open the “find” window for you to search for words throughout a document. If you want to know if an article on benefits of exercise specifically mentions eating habits, try typing in words like “eating,” “food,” or “diet.”
7. Use the bibliographies of a reliable source to find more sources
If you find a source that holds reliable, accurate, and crucial information, look to its bibliography to find more sources like it. One great source probably uses other great sources, so doing a little “bibliography mining” will help you find more information about topics that are specifically within the original source.
8. Use library resources…
On top of databases provided by your school, you might be able to access some free databases at a public library. You should also look for books about your topic to use as sources, as these are also guaranteed to be accurate and reliable. Although it takes more time to read through books, there are ways to quickly figure out if you’ll be able to find what you’re looking for within a book. Start by reading the preface or introduction to get an idea of what the book contains, and then look over the table of contents to see whether there are specific sections that reference your topic. This takes a little more digging, but once you find the information, it’s typically concise enough for you to get a few good quotes and chunks of information.
9. … including human resources
All libraries have librarians or research aides, so if you’re stumped on how to find the information you’re looking for, talk to someone. Even if you’re just starting your research, it’s a great idea to ask what databases and online resources you can access through the library so that you can cover all of your bases.
10. Don’t disregard sources that hold the same information as others
Even though you might look at a source and think that it holds almost exactly the same information as another source, that doesn’t mean it isn’t valuable. Information is given quickly and concisely, so there might be one key piece of information that you don’t see anywhere else even though everything else about the source seems familiar. You should also be looking for quotes to use in your paper, so getting as many sources as possible can’t hurt in helping you get more voices and ways to phrase something.
11. Figure out how you prefer to read sources
Print or digital? Once you know your reading preference, make sure you have a way to take notes and store your sources. You should be taking notes as you read and highlighting quotes so that you don’t forget where any information is or why you want to use it. I prefer printed sources over digital because it’s easy to take notes right on the paper rather than using separate sheets, notecards, or a word document.
12. Find a way to organize your sources that works for you
As soon as you begin looking for sources, you’re going to need a way to keep track of them whether they’re printed or saved digitally. Organize them in whatever way makes the most sense to you. In the past, I’ve tried a few methods of organizations for printed sources, and I’ve created a mildly-chaotic, though helpful, system. I use different highlighters to color-code sources based on the topics each source covers. This works best if you have an outline for your paper already determined because you already know how many topics/colors you’ll keep track of, and you can see that you have enough information for each point. If you don’t have an outline or an idea of what topics you’ll be covering, this can still be helpful as a way of marking the similarities between sources. You can also highlight specific information within the articles using this system so that you know where in your paper each piece will fit. If I know, for example, that I want a paper on gun control to include pros, cons, statistics, and solutions, I can color code all information I find for each of those sections.
13. Get both sides of an argument
When you’re writing a research paper, you need to take a stand, but you also can’t entirely write off a point that diverges from your own. You can either agree with part of an opposing argument or disagree with all of it, but whatever you choose, talk about the arguments of the opposing argument. Your paper will be more credible and seem less biased than if you only talked about the evidence to support your own point. If you’re writing that gun control paper, make sure you include the pros and cons so that you can show you’re not just someone with a political right- or left-wing agenda.
Tips for determining a source’s reliability, accuracy, and credibility
1. Check the publication date and the dates of sources in the bibliography
If a source is from 2000, it’s probably not as accurate as something published in 2012. Information about any given topic changes over the years, so anything that’s more than five years old might not be accurate anymore. Be wary of using anything too old, and be sure that everything seems up-to-date or at least not proven false in later articles. Also make sure that an article doesn’t use old resources for its own information. Even if something was published last year, if it relies on information from 1990, it’s probably not accurate.
2. Cross-reference information for accuracy
Make sure that you double-check every piece of information you intend to use in your paper. Especially if you’re using sources that don’t come from a database or website hosting scholarly articles, you should keep an eye out for inaccuracies. If something seems questionable, look it up using a different source.
3. Check for the author’s or publisher’s credibility
If you can’t find an author or publisher anywhere, you’re probably not looking at a credible source. If you can find a name or publisher, search it in Google to see what else may be published by that person or publisher or what people are saying about their work.
4. Watch out for one-sided or biased arguments
Just like you don’t want to only include your argument in your paper, you don’t want to use sources that focus too heavily on one argument. While there’s no problem with taking a stance, if an article appears biased or completely ignores the opposing side of the issue, it might not be reliable or objective. Instead, look for sources that address the opposing view, as you should be doing in your own paper.
5. Understand a source’s tone and intended audience
You should know who an article is meant to target so that you can tell that the information is of a high quality. If the information seems to be written for a younger audience, it probably isn’t scientific enough for your purposes. If it’s meant to sway someone in a certain direction, it will probably form its argument accordingly, so watch out for the way an author writes. If he or she seems to be trying to convince you of something with which you disagree, you’re probably not the target audience. If you seem to agree with almost everything, be aware that you could be the target audience, and you might be liable to believe information that isn’t actually reliable but just fits into what you’re used to thinking is correct.
6. Is there enough evidence to support an argument?
Looking for specific evidence to support a point goes along with searching for biases, tone, and audience. An article needs to be factual rather than opinionated, and if it doesn’t offer enough evidence to back up its argument, then whatever point it’s making might not cover all of the information that’s necessary for it to be deemed reliable. Be sure that each source you choose to use provides sufficient evidence to support its argument, just as your own paper should incorporate sufficient evidence as well.
-Hope Swedeen
How do you organize your research? What are some tricks you use to figure out which sources are reliable and which aren’t?
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