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Get Started With Research

Use this guide to become a more skillful researcher. Learn how to develop research questions, choose credible sources, evaluate your sources, cite them correctly, and avoid plagiarism

What Makes Information Useful?

Once you've thought about your topic and you've decided what questions you want to spend your energy and time answering, you're ready to start gathering information that'll help you explore different and specific aspects of your topic.

Finding information is not difficult; the challenge is focusing your search enough to find useful information. What makes information useful anyway?

Useful information:

  • Will answer your research questions,
  • Is appropriate for your assignment, and
  • Is from a reliable source.

You don't want to waste your time gathering a bunch of irrelevant, unreliable information that you can't use in your paper.

Research Tips & Tricks

You're busy, so any strategy that will make your work faster and produce better results is welcome.  Did you know that you can use different search strategies in library catalogs, article databases, and the Web to find just what you need quickly? 

Learn about the most common search strategies in these brief videos: 

Video from the Wellington Medical and Health Sciences Library. | Time - 1:56 min.

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YouTube video on effective search strategies from EmilyatChemLib. | Time - 3:03 mins.

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