To develop your authority as a researcher, you need to think like a researcher—asking interesting questions, becoming well informed through reading and evaluating sources, and citing sources to acknowledge other researchers.

Be curious. What makes you angry, concerned, or perplexed? What topics and debates do you care about? What problems do you want to help solve? What expertise do you have? What expertise do you want to develop? Explore your topic from multiple perspectives, and let your curiosity drive your project.

Be engaged. Talk with a librarian and learn how to use your library’s research tools and resources. Once you find promising sources, let one source lead you to another; follow bibliographic clues to learn who else has written about your topic. Listen to the key voices in the research conversation you’ve joined—and then respond.

Be responsible. Use sources to develop and support your ideas rather than patching them together to let them speak for you. From the start of your research project, keep careful track of sources you read or view, place quotation marks around words copied from sources, and maintain accurate records for all bibliographic information.

Be reflective. Keep a research log, and use your log to explore various ideas you are developing and to pose counterarguments to your research argument. Research is never a straightforward path, so use your log to reflect on the evolution of your project as well as your evolution as a researcher.