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ENGWR 300 (Jackson)

ENGWR 300 (Jackson)

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Welcome

Welcome to the LibGuide for Professor Jackson's ENGWR 300 class. This guide will help you with library research on your Causal Argument and Proposal Argument research papers. It will present information on searching books, databases and web sites that will help you define your topic and support your information and arguments.

Pam's Rules of Research

These Rules of Research apply to almost any project.

  • Research will always take more time than you expect it to.
  • Start in the right place. If you're writing a college research paper, start at the library homepage. If you're searching for movie times, Google is fine.
  • What do you expect to find? If you don't find it, change your search and try again. Think of research like an experiment. Keep trying until you get the results you're looking for.
  • Learn a few advanced search strategies.
  • Build your search. Start with 1-3 words. Add more words to narrow it down. If you start by typing a sentence and don't find many results, you don't know which word or phrase is the problem.
  • Wikipedia is a great place to start but not to finish. Start at Wikipedia to research your topic enough to find search terms and information to search more effectively.
  • Google or Google Scholar is a great place to finish but not to start. Start in the library databases (e.g. OneSearch) to find high quality resources. You should only do your research in Google if you haven't found anything in any of the library databases. Save it for last.
  • Don't lock your topic until you've done a little pre-research. Do a quick search in OneSearch to see what sort of material turns up.
  • If you have to include a peer-reviewed journal article in your bibliography, check OneSearch to make sure that you can find journal articles on this specific topic.

 

What if I don't find anything?

If you aren't finding enough material or you aren't finding what you expect, change how you've entered your search.

Try new keywords.

Make sure there aren't any limits you hadn't noticed such as limiting to finding books.

 

Most importantly, get help from a librarian early and often. We love to help with research!

Subjects: English