How to Do Research

How do I find a topic to research?

Preliminary research in your field of study helps you find a topic. If you're doing your research to fulfill a class requirement, look over the information about the assignment and your materials for the class to narrow down your options. If you have more free rein, look into issues or ideas that interest you personally. For example, if you're researching in the political science field, you might be interested in determining what leads people to believe that the 2020 US presidential election was illegitimate. Write down any sub-questions that you need to research before you can adequately formulate your research question.

How do I get started on my research?

Look for overview articles to gain a better understanding of your topic. If an overview article has a bibliography section, you can find other sources there. Overview articles also give you an idea of what keywords you should use to search for other sources. For example, if you're researching the 2020 election, you might find that "absentee ballots" and "voting by mail" come up frequently. Those are issues you could look into further to figure out how they impacted the final election results. You don't necessarily have to use the overview articles you look at as resources in your actual paper. Even Wikipedia articles can be a good way to learn more about a topic and you can check the references for more reputable sources that might work for your paper.

What's the best way to keep track of my sources?

Use index cards to take notes and record citation information for each source. On one side of each index card, write down all the information you would put into your bibliography or Works Cited for the source. On the other side, write down information about the source that will be useful in your paper. Research papers typically discuss 2 or 3 separate things that work together to answer the research question. You might also want to make a note on the front of which thing that source relates to. That'll make it easier for you to organize your sources later. For example, if you're researching the 2020 election, you might have a section of your paper discussing voting by mail. For the sources that directly address that issue, write "voting by mail" in the corner.

What kind of notes should I be taking as I research?

Try to put ideas in your own words rather than copying from the source. Putting the ideas into your own words from the outset helps you avoid plagiarism. You still want to write the page number where the idea came from, though, in case the style guide you're using requires that information in your in-text citation. If you find something that you think would make a good quote, copy it out exactly with quote marks around it, then add the page number where it appears so you can correctly cite it in your paper without having to go back and hunt for it again.

How do I evaluate the quality of a source?

Check into the background of the author and the publication. For some sources, such as articles in scholarly journals, you won't have to do a lot of extra work to know they're reliable. But if you're using websites or mass media, make sure the information is reliable and the author is an expert on the topic. Here are some questions to ask about the source: Does the article discuss or reference another article? (If so, use that article instead.) What expertise or authority does the author have? When was the material written? (Is it the most up-to-date reference you could use?) Why was the article published? (Is it trying to sell you something or persuade you to adopt a certain viewpoint?) Are the research methods used consistent and reliable? (Appropriate research methods depend on what was studied.)

What if I'm having a hard time finding good sources?

If there aren't enough sources, broaden your topic. You might get into researching and discover that there just aren't as many sources for your topic as you thought there were when you first started—and that's okay! Think of probable reasons you're not finding enough and expand your topic to compensate for those reasons. For example, if you're writing about the 2020 election, you might find tons of stories online, but very little that is reputable enough for you to use in your paper. Because the election happened so recently, it might be too soon for there to be a lot of solid academic research on it. Instead, you might focus on the 2016 election. You can also ask for help. Your instructor might be able to point you toward good sources. Research librarians are also happy to help you.

How do I organize my research for my paper?

Start making a rough outline of your paper while you're researching. Your research paper will have an introduction, a conclusion, and 3 or 4 specific points that you use to answer your research question. Even with a little research, you'll be able to identify these main points and start organizing your sources under each of those points. For example, if you're researching the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on the 2020 election, you might have sections on social distancing and cleaning at in-person voting locations, the accessibility of mail-in ballots, and early voting.

What's the best way to start writing my paper?

Start writing the middle, or body, of your paper. Get your ideas down, then see if you need to do any research. Since your introduction and conclusion summarize your paper, it's best to write those last. Include an in-text citation for everything that needs one, even in your initial rough draft. That'll help you make sure that you don't inadvertently misattribute or fail to cite something as you work your way through substantive drafts. Write your introduction and conclusion only after you're satisfied that the body of your paper is essentially what you want to turn in. Then, you can polish everything up for the final draft.

How can I make sure I'm not plagiarizing?

Include a citation for every idea that isn't your original thought. If you took good notes while you were researching, it should be pretty easy to distinguish which thoughts are yours and which you took from a source. If you have any doubts, go back to your sources and review them again to make sure you didn't take anything from them without attributing it. If you have any doubt over whether you should cite something, go ahead and do it. You're better off to err on the side of over-citing than to look like you're taking credit for an idea that isn't yours.