Working on a research paper?
Here’s how you…
Find books
- Use the Online Catalog
- Use the keyword search to find your topic.
- Group phrases together with quotation marks (“underage drinking”) and group similar terms together using the word and (teens and drinking).
- If you are having trouble, try varying your search terms (underage drinking, alcoholism, alcohol and teens, teens and “alcohol use”).
Find articles from magazines, journals or newspapers in our databases
- Go to our homepage
- From the 24/7 Services dropdown tab, choose Databases.
- Choose the database you would like to use. We recommend starting with General OneFile for magazines and InfoTrac Newspapers for newspapers.
- If you’d like to broaden out from these two databases, use the Subject Guide to find a database that suits your project.
- Type in your topic. Use similar strategies to those listed under Find Books.
Find articles from reference books and encyclopedias
Try our reference section.
- The reference books are on shelves after the Biography section, near the back windows of the reference room.
- These books can be checked out, or you may copy any needed pages if you don’t want to take the book home.
- Reference books will have similar call numbers to those you used to find the books on your topic, but will have an “R” in front of them (ie: R616/AME).
- If you can’t find a reference book on your exact topic, think more broadly (ie: underage drinking is a health issue and a social issue – try a health or sociology encyclopedia.)
Try the Online Library: an excellent collection of digital reference books.
- Go to our homepage
- From the 24/7 Services dropdown tab, choose Databases.
- Select Gale Virtual Reference.
- Type in your topic and use similar strategies to those listed above.
Learn more about finding and analyzing information in our Guide to Doing Research.
