Assignments that require the use of library materials can take many forms and will be a part of most of your classes. We’ll learn several ways to search for information later in the chapter. Before you start searching, however, you need to have an idea of exactly what you’re looking for.

Choosing a topic is often the hardest part of a research project. Even if an instructor assigns a general topic, you’ll need to narrow it down to a particular area that interests you enough to research it. Imagine, for example, that you have been assigned to write a research paper on the topic of global warming. What steps should you take? Your first job is to get an overview of your topic. You can begin by conducing a Google search. Once you’ve found some basic information to guide you toward an understanding of your topic, you have a decision to make: What aspects of the subject will you research? Soon after you start researching your topic, you may realize that it is really large (for example, simply typing “global warming” into Google will return millions of hits) and that it includes many related subtopics. You can use this new information to create keywords. A keyword is a word or phrase that tells an online search tool what you’re looking for. You can create a list of keywords by brainstorming different terms and subtopics within your general topic that will help you find resources for your topic. For example, for the topic “global warming,” keywords may include “climate change,” “greenhouse effect,” “ozone layer,” “smog,” or “carbon emissions.” Even those terms will generate a large number of hits, and you will probably need to narrow your search several times.

What you want are twelve or so focused and highly relevant hits on an aspect of the topic that you can use to write a well-organized essay. Begin by figuring out what you already know and what you would like to learn more about. Perhaps you know a little about global warming causes and effects and you’re curious about its impacts on animals and plants; in that case you might decide on a two-part topic: impacts on animals, impacts on plants. By consulting a few general sources, you’ll find that you can narrow a broad topic to something that interests you and is a manageable size. You may end up focusing on the impact of global warming on one particular animal or plant in one specific geographic area.

If you are having trouble coming up with keywords, one place to begin your research is an encyclopedia. Encyclopedias provide general overviews of topics. They can help you understand the basics of a concept or event, but you will need to use other resources for most college-level research projects. An encyclopedia is a great place to start your research but not a good place to end it.

You have probably used an encyclopedia recently—you may use one all the time without thinking about it: Wikipedia. A wiki is a type of Web site that allows many different people to edit its content. This means that information on wikis can be constantly changing. Wikipedia is controversial in college work. Many instructors feel that the information on Wikipedia cannot be guaranteed to be reliable because anyone can change it; they instead want students to use sources that have gone through a formal editing and reviewing process. Your instructors might even forbid Wikipedia; if so, avoid it altogether. Even if an instructor permits the use of Wikipedia, it’s best to use it only as a starting point for your research. Do not plan on citing Wikipedia in your final paper. Rather, check the references at the bottom of Wikipedia pages, or otherwise verify claims made at Wikipedia on another trustworthy site.

Even with an understanding of various types of sources, it can be difficult to determine what exactly you need for your assignment. Figure 8.1 provides an overview of when to use different common research sources and gives examples of what you’ll find in each source.