The reading and writing you do in college are part of what we broadly think of as research. In fact, much of the work you do in college may turn an informal search into various kinds of more formal research: you might start by wondering how many students on your campus are vegetarians, for example, and end up with a research project for your sociology class that then becomes part of a multimedia presentation for a campus organization.

Many of your writing assignments will require extensive or formal research with a wide range of print, online, and media sources as well as information drawn from observations, interviews, or surveys. Research can help you find important information you didn’t know, even if you know a topic very well. And no matter what you discover, your research will be an important tool for establishing credibility with your audience members and thus gaining their confidence in you as a writer. Often, what you write will be only as good as the research on which it is based. (For more on research, see the Research section.)