Getting Started: Learning Background Information About Your Topic
Your professor has provided you with a list of possible topics for your paper. To get started by learning context about your topic, try checking out the following resources:
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Gale eBooksGale eBooks is a database full of online dictionaries and encyclopedias. Search for your topics by one word or phrase, like "biomacromolecules"
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CatalogSearch our catalog for all books we own, both in print and online. Since books are often written for a general audience, they can provide a lot of explanation of your topic.
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Credo ReferenceCredo will provide short definitions for any words you don't recognize while reading about your topic.
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WikipediaCheck this website for a basic explanation of your topic as well.
Now that you've gotten your basic summaries, focus: what bigger questions do you have? Try the sources below to see what you can find:
Now that you've gathered background information on your topic, you'll want to check out the sources below to find a mixture of scholarly and popular articles (Academic Search Ultimate) and scholarly articles (Science Direct):
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Academic Search Ultimate This link opens in a new windowAcademic Search Ultimate provides both popular and scholarly journal coverage on a huge variety of topics. Use ASU to find more in-depth information for your paper.
Evaluating websites
While you're doing Google searches to either narrow your topic or in order to dig up more information on certain subject, you want to be careful to decide if the information you find is trustworthy.
When it comes to science, nearly everyone has opinions: should we be labeling genetically modified food for consumer's awareness? What will fracking do for our economy or to our groundwater supply? Your job is to evaluate the information you can find through search engines such as Google to find the good websites--those written by authors with clear expertise, with up-to-date information.
Authorship: Who created this website? What is their background on the topic? Are they trustworthy?
Bias/Mission: Why was the website created? What point of view does the author or website have? Does that limit the facts they present or how the facts are presented?
Date: How old is the information that is presented? Is it still accurate?
Questions? Check out the COD Library's guide to evaluating information.
Citing Your Sources
Need some help putting together citations? Check out the helpful links below:
Want software to create citations for you? Check out the database below:
