A Guide To Online Research
The academic research project is a standard feature of every student's life at Cornell. Consequently, for every student, research projects raise important questions, such as, wWhere do you find the information you need for your research? hHow do you find it? and, hHow do you evaluate and manage that information once you find it?
When engaging in academic research, you have to be a savvy information shopper---[remove dashes] and a savvy consumer, too. You must:
This is where research skills [link to http://www.library.cornell.edu/resrch/intro\] and knowledge of Cornell's [academic integrity guidelines| link to http://cuinfo.cornell.edu/Academic/AIC.html\] are key.
Your approach to information research, like your needs and requirements regarding sources of information, will vary depending on what you research. For example, you may be researching scholarly articles for a paper, popular news and opinion for a speech, images and video for a multimedia project, or blog posts and Wikipedia articles for the latest movie news. A quick Google or Wikipedia search may suit your purposes in some scenarios, but, for academic research, that's just the first step.
When you conduct academic research, you join a community of scholars in a chain of conversation and truth seeking that has gone on for centuries before you. In the Internet age, you have more access to more of that collected information than anyone else has ever had in any age before you. But with unprecedented powers come unprecedented challenges, and, online, you face those challenges in a landscape of continuous change. Digital literacy is, in part, knowledge about how and when to use the wide variety of tools you need-digital, print, and personal-to complete your assignments. Although there is no single "right" way to conduct information research, certain methods and skills can make your research efforts more efficient and effective.
Research usually starts with a question, and formulating that question can be the hardest part of the process. Before you can find the right question to ask, you need some context or background about your topic.
From Cornell University Library's Introduction to Research tutorial (2009), here are some approaches you can use to choose and explore a research topic:
Use sources like these to understand the broader context of your topic. They can tell you in general terms what is known about it, including what kind of information is out there and what interesting questions are still unanswered.
First, state your topic idea as a question or a sentence. For example, you might be interested in finding out, "How did Title IX impact women athletes in college athletic programs?" Before you commit to this or any specific topic for your research, use the [library databases| link to http://wfxsearch.webfeat.org/clients/wfxcornell/wf3_cornell.asp?cid=12378\] to test it. Academic Search Premier [link to http://resolver.library.cornell.edu/misc/5820912\] or Proquest Research Library [link to http://resolver.library.cornell.edu/umip/aqg6345\] are often a good first step because they are trustworthy general resources that cover many subject areas. The library subscribes to thousands of databases -[long dashes] collections of articles, images and data -[long dashes] in a wide range of disciplines that cover in-depth information that is often not available for free online.
While you can usually just search for some words or a phrase in an online search engine, library databases require you to search in particular ways, if they are going to recognize your search. Depending on the resource you are using, the exact methods you'll use to search will vary, but most library databases use similar methods, called Boolean searching. [ED NOTE: CUT: This isn't necessarily true. Many databases have a basic search that does not require very much of the patron.]
The more specific you can be about what you are looking for, the more effective your search will be. To define your potential search terms, identify the main concepts or keywords in your question. In this case, they are "Title IX," "women," "athletes," and "college athletic programs."
Now perform the search. Review the search results to determine if your topic is:
It's helpful to create and refine your search multiple times as you hone your ideas, find new pathways, change your ideas, and learn more about the subject area. For more information on choosing and developing your topic and testing your search, see "Choosing and Developing Your Topic" [link to http://www.library.cornell.edu/resrch/intro#1Choosinganddevelopingaresearchtopic-1Ch\] in the Cornell University Library's Introduction to Research tutorial.
If you complete your test, and you are still in doubt, ask your professor.
Let's look at some techniques for narrowing your search. One option is to add more words or specialized terms that describe your topic, putting "AND" between each word. For example, search "women AND athletes AND college AND athletics." By using "AND" in capital letters between each term, you indicate that you aren't looking for the word "and," but that instead you are specifying a Boolean operation requiring the inclusion of all terms in the search.
If you're getting a lot of articles or books that mention your topic, but which haven't been written directly about it, you can narrow your search of library catalogs and article databases by using subject headings. Subject headings (sometimes called "descriptors" or "suggested topics") are words the databases use to tag everything about the topic. For example, you might search for "women athletes," but find that useful subject headings (usually found in the complete record for an item that fits your criteria) are "women athletes United States" or "sports for women." Once you have discovered these, you can search by subject instead of by keyword or by terms, to locate additional information that's pertinent your topic.
Also, you can exclude words by using "NOT" (for example, "women athletes NOT basketball," if you want to exclude anything that mentions that sport). But be careful! Doing so will exclude anything that mentions the negated term, even once.
You can also narrow your search by publication dates, language, type of document, and other criteria. Doing so will enable you to find what you want with just a few clicks without having to troll through thousands of results.
Now let's consider ways of broadening your search. You can do this by using a more general term or terms or by thinking of synonyms or related terms. For example, you can search "women OR female OR gender OR woman." By using the word "OR" in capital letters between each term, you indicate that you aren't looking for the word "or," but rather that you're looking for any of those variations on "woman."
Most databases also let you search for variations of words using a process called truncation. For example, "athlet*" can be used to find "athlete," "athletes," "athletics"-anything that begins with those letters, no matter what its final letters are.
Note: These techniques usually appear in most databases and library resources, though the way they appear will vary. Always check the search tips or Help to find out how they work in a particular database or[http://www.library.cornell.edu/ask-|http://www.library.cornell.edu/ask}[Ask a Librarian|http://www.library.cornell.edu/ask]-. (TC) All search engines may not have the same features.-
Text modified from Cornell University Library. (2009). Introduction to Research. Retrieved May 14, 2009, from http://www.library.cornell.edu/resrch/intro
In this topic, you can read about:
There are several approaches you can take to finding information for a research paper. Two approaches are:[add colon]
1. lLook for information through the library and
2. lLook for information using search engines.
A search using Google or Google Scholar can result in millions of potential sources, so it's no wonder these tools are such popular choices. However, there are lots of specialized databases that you won't find in a Google or Google Scholar search. These specialized databases can link you to thousands of academic resources, such as research articles, business & legal information resources, or statistical surveys. The Library's guides [link to http://www.library.cornell.edu/resrch/libguides\]) can also connect you to some of the great databases in your field---whether you are a marketing major or a philosophy student. In addition, the library's catalog will link you to books and journals that aren't yet available online. Cornell, like other universities, is digitizing many of its historic collection but there are still millions of volumes that are not yet in digital form. Here are some ways you can begin finding information for your research assignment:However, there are several reasons to familiarize yourself with other methods of searching for information. For one thing, not everything is available online yet. Though much of the material in print is slowly being digitized, you can't count on finding exactly what you need on the Web. Alternatively, there are all kinds of other resources available for scholarly research through the library.
In the library, you can always:
All of these approaches will give you useful resources on your topic.
For more information on finding materials on various topics, see Finding books, articles and other materials to in the library's Introduction to Research tutorial.
If you find one good source, the bibliography at the end of it will point to research that its author used. In addition, you can often find a type of scholarly articles--called "a review of the literature"- written expressly created to provide an overview of research in specific fields. The sources cited in such review articles -literature review or in any relevant bibliography are good starting points for further inquiry.
Why can't you just Google it? Remember, not everything is available online and free of charge, especially in the scholarly realm. To get the best results, be sure to look beyond Google in your research. (This tutorial also includes a topic entitled "Why Everything Isn't Available Online and Free" which you should refer to for more information.)
You're probably already familiar with searching for information on the Internet. Here are a few academic objectives that which a general Web search can help you to meet:
Effective use of the Web in information research means more than just throwing a couple of keywords into a search engine and seeing what the first few results are. Here are The "Using Google" section offers some tips for performing a targeted Google search using Google, as well as some tips for using other available sources of information.
Depending on your research area, you may find the following resources of assistance
Librarians work with faculty to develop guides [link to http://www.library.cornell.edu/resrch/libguides\] on how to do research. These guides run the gamut from doing research in anthropology to zoology. If you can't find one for your subject area, Ask a librarian [link to http://www.library.cornell.edu/ask\]. The library also develops guides [link to http://www.library.cornell.edu/olinuris/ref/tutorialsguides.html\] on different topics, such as how to cite sources.
The most popular search engine is Google. The following are some tips for using Google to get the best results available:
The simplest and most common way to perform a standard Google search is to enter one or more carefully chosen keywords in the search box on the Google main page.
TAlthough the standard search provides results, you may find that you get a much more relevant set of search results by using the Advanced Search option.
For scholarly research, you also can use Google Scholar [link to http://scholar.google.com\] . Google Scholar searches a more academic subset of the Web. Although wWhat Google considers scholarly will sometimes differ from what your professors and librarians consider scholarly, but in general, Google Scholar will return a more relevant set of results than a regular Google Search will.
TIP: You can use Google Scholar to get to some (though certainly not all) of the resources the library has licensed from off-campus (it's automatic if you are on campus). See Why Everything Isn't Available Online and Free [link to http://digitalliteracy.cornell.edu/tutorial/dpl3230.html\] for more information about licensed resources and why you need to indicate that you are affiliated with Cornell to get these paid services.
Set your [Google Scholar Preferences| link to http://scholar.google.com/scholar_preferences?hl=en\] so that Google recognizes you as a Cornell person, knows what you have access to, and will let you keep your references in a citation management program.
Google Books is a project that makes millions of books available online, either in full text or in snippets. There are a number of other initiatives to make books available online, such as the Internet Archive-,- and the digital collections available from Cornell at http://bookstore.library.cornell.edu (the latter often enabling you to buy print copies of digitized sources, as well as paid print-on-demand through services like Amazon.com.
Google does not cover everything! (No single Web site or search engine can.) So you need to have more tools than just Google at your disposal. Cornell University Library subscribes to thousands of scholarly databases and journals [link to http://wfxsearch.webfeat.org/clients/wfxcornell/wf3_cornell.asp?cid=12378] that are available from your desktop. and yYou can find millions of books[link to http://cornell.worldcat.org] in its stacks and online, many of which are not freely accessible on the Internet. Even if the item you're looking for is available somewhere online, it may not be possible to find it using search engines, and it may not be available for free. Furthermore, the fact that one search engine can find it doesn't guarantee that another one will be able to! Every search engine finds different things. So you need to have more tools than just Google at your disposal. The following Here are a few other sources of information on the Internet:
Finding books and articles for your topic is just the first step. Getting the whole book or the full-text version of an article if the full text is not online is the next step. To accomplish this, you can:
Once you have found information on your topic, analyzing and evaluating the results of your search can be a challenge. How will you know if you have found the most authoritative, accurate, objective, and up-to-date scholarly information available? Use the Source Evaluation Checklist, a guide to thinking critically about what you find.
[block quote]"How do you distinguish scholarly from nonscholarly periodicals---[long dash] that is, journals from magazines? Journals and magazines are important sources of up-to-date information in all disciplines. Periodical literature can be grouped into four categories:
Evaluating Resources Cornell University Library. (2009). [Distinguishing scholarly from non-scholarly periodicals [link to http://www.library.cornell.edu/resrch/intro#2Findingbooks,articles,andothermater\].Introduction to Research. Retrieved May 14, 2009, from http://www.library.cornell.edu/resrch/intro#2Findingbooks,articles,andothermater
Scholarly articles are judged according to whether or not they are peer-reviewed. Peer-reviewed journals contain articles that have been examined by peers experts in the field (perhaps on the journal's editorial board) and evaluated on the quality of their research. This is an entirely different thing from the type of peer review you may perform in your classes (since you and your classmates probably are not generally recognized authorities in any field).
The following are a couple of ways you can tell if a journal is peer-reviewed:
Sometimes your professor will ask you to consult primary sources on a subject. The characteristics of primary sources vary, depending on the field of investigation, but, in general, the following observations about primary sources are accurate:
You may also choose to use some secondary sources (summaries or interpretations of original research or events), which can be books (available through the library catalog) or review articles (ones which organize and critically analyze the research others have conducted on a topic). These secondary sources are often useful, easy-to-read summaries of research in an area. Additionally, you can use the references listed at the end of them to find useful primary sources.
For more information on primary versus secondary articles, please see the following:
Use this "Evaluating Web Resources" [add quotes] checklist [add space if missing] from Cornell University Library's Introduction to Research tutorial to evaluate the information sources you discover as a result of performing a search. Check the items in each of the following categories:
How stable does the resource seem to be? The resource's dependability (particularly in the case of Web sites) is important if it is going to be cited as a source or recommended for use by others.
These are not the only criteria you should evaluate will need to look at. Depending on what your professor has asked you for and on your research needs, you may need to look for certain kinds of material. In academic research in particular, your professor may ask you to find scholarly, peer-reviewed, or primary sources.
Wikipedia is one of the most amazing projects to emerge in recent years. Before Wikipedia, the idea that the sum of human knowledge could be collected and updated by ordinary people had been unthinkable. It is unparalleled as a barometer of knowledge production and epistemology. Never before in history have the collective seeking of so many people and the battle for a neutral point of view in knowledge production been so open, transparent, and democratic.
As a tool for scholarly research, Wikipedia can be either a grade-killer [add hyphen] or a valuable friend, depending on who you ask and or what you hope to accomplish using it. What is fairly certain is that your professor won't let you cite it in a scholarly research paper.
There are a few common reasons why you can't site Wikipedia:
Two other Wikipedia policies relevant to academic rigor are its verifiability and "no original research" policies.
Use Wikipedia to get a general overview, and follow the references it provides as far as they can take you.
Look at the Discussion tab to see if the article you're reading is part of a WikiProject, meaning that a group of people who care about the subject area are working in concert on its content. They may not be experts in on the subject, but signing onto a WikiProject implies a writer has more than a casual interest in it.
If it is part of a WikiProject, see if it has been rated. Articles in WikiProjects go through a type of peer review. This is not the same type of peer review your professor talks about regarding scholarly research, but even such a limited review does at least imply that someone from the WikiProject has looked at the article at some point and assigned a quality rating to it. In any case, to be fairly sure that a Wikipedia article expresses what laypeople might need to know to consider themselves reasonably informed, look for a rating of B/A or above.
You may wish to consult any or all of the following for additional help in finding and evaluating sources:
One of the key things to know is that, particularly with scholarly material, not everything is online yet. , and often wWhat is, often isn't free.
If you've ever found the perfect article for your paper, looked for it in an online database, and then found out either that the library doesn't have it or that it's only available in print, then you know that not everything is available online. If you've ever searched Google, Google Scholar, or Yahoo, come across an article, and been asked to pay for it, you know that not everything online is free. If you've ever searched a database and found articles you never saw when you searched elsewhere, you know that articles can be online in one place but not in another. The move from print to the digital world is a complex one, and librarians can help you figure out how to get what you need. The library's iInterlibrary loan and other borrowing services can get you almost anything from anywhere without charge, and the library is involved in a number of initiatives to make more articles and research available to you online for free.
Also, making the full body of scholarly research available, in particular that found in print books, has taken considerably longer than originally anticipated due to costs and copyright issues. Cornell University Library and several other libraries, in partnership with Google (and other groups), are enabling the scanning of thousands of scholarly books that were previously only available in print. Currently, in Google Book Search, there are hundreds of public-domain books (published before 1923) that are fully viewable online, and thousands more you can either see brief snippets of or citations from.
Finding the information for your research paper and determining whether that information fits what you need is just the first part of the process. Next, when you're using this information in your own work, you'll need to cite your sources to avoid plagiarism. Ethical standards require that you give credit to all published authors for their ideas. This is especially true in scholarship, but the principle of proper reference documentation applies to other areas as well. In addition, it is important to cite the your sources that you use so that someone reading your work can track them down and come to their own conclusions about them.
According to the College of Arts and Sciences' plagiarism tutorial [link to http://plagiarism.arts.cornell.edu/tutorial/index.cfm] on "When do I need to document sources?" (2005),
"If you use any external sources in your work, you must document every instance you do so. There are several ways of incorporating outside sources into your own work.
Both direct and indirect citations require proper documentation. Quotations, in particular, must be enclosed within quotation marks or set off in block quotes."
From the library guide on citation management, these are the most common formats for citing sources. If you are unsure what which style to use, ask your professor.
It can be difficult to keep up with citation styles and the changes within and among them. To take the guesswork out of the process, there are a number of citation management software programs. This type of software will format your bibliography and footnotes for you. It's also a great way to keep track of all the information you've found.
We especially recommend RefWorks [link to http://refowrks.cornell.edu] (Internet-based and free to current Cornell students, staff, and faculty) and Endnote (desktop-based).
You may also wish to refer to the Annotated Bibliography Tutorial.
Books, One Author, in print
Kidder, T. (1981). The soul of a new machine. Boston: Little, Brown & Company.
Journal Article, one author, accessed online Ku, G. (2008). Learning to de-escalate: The effects of regret in escalation of commitment. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 105(2), 221-232. doi:10.1016/j.obhdp.2007.08.002
Audiovisual Media
References to audiovisual media must include the following elements: name and function of the primary contributors (e.g., producer, director), date, title, the medium in brackets, location or place of production, and name of distributor. If the medium appears as part of the retrieval ID, brackets are not needed.
Videocassette/DVD
Achbar, M. (Director/Producer), Abbott, J. (Director), Bakan, J. (Writer), & Simpson, B. (Producer). (2004). The corporation [DVD]. Canada: Big Picture Media Corporation.
Audio Recording
Nhat Hanh, T. (Speaker). (1998). Mindful living: a collection of teachings on love, mindfulness, and meditation (Cassette Recording). Boulder, CO: Sounds True Audio.
Motion Picture
Gilbert, B. (Producer), & Higgins, C. (Screenwriter/Director). (1980). Nine to five [Motion Picture]. United States: Twentieth Century Fox.
Television Broadcast
Anderson, R., & Morgan, C. (Producers). (2008, June 20). 60 Minutes [Television broadcast]. Washington, DC: CBS News.
Episode of a Television Show from a Series
Whedon, J. (Director/Writer). (1999, December 14). Hush [Television series episode]. In Whedon, J., Berman, G., Gallin, S., Kuzui, F., & Kuzui, K. (Executive Producers), Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Burbank, CA: Warner Bros.
Music Recording
Jackson, M. (1982). Beat it. On Thriller [CD]. New York: Sony Music.
For content that does not easily fit into common categories like "journal paper," "book," or "report," keep in mind the goal of a citation is to give the reader a clear path to the source material. For electronic and online materials, include a stable URL or database name and include the author, title, and date published where available. For undated materials, include the date the resource was accessed.
Blog Entry
Arrington, M. (2008, August 5). The viral video guy gets $1 million in funding. Message posted to http://www.techcrunch.com
Professional Web Site
National Renewable Energy Laboratory. (2008). Biofuels. Retrieved May 6, 2008, from http://www.nrel.gov/learning/re_biofuels.html
Data Set from a Database
Bloomberg L.P. (2008). Return on capital for Hewitt Packard 12/31/90 to 09/30/08. Retrieved Dec. 3, 2008, from Bloomberg database.
Central Statistics Office of the Republic of Botswana. (2008). Gross domestic product per capita 06/01/1994 to 06/01/2008 [statistics]. Available from CEIC Data database.
Entire Web Site
When citing an entire Web site (and not a specific document on that site), no reference-list entry is required if the address for the site is cited in the text of your paper.
Witchcraft in Europe and America is a site that presents the full text of many essential works in the literature of witchcraft and demonology (http://www.witchcraft.psmedia.com/)."
Cornell University Library. (2009). APA Citation Style. Retrieved May 14, 2009, from http://www.library.cornell.edu/resrch/citmanage/apa\\
Q: How do I choose a topic for my paper?
A: How to choose a topic for a research paper is That's a big question.-probably beyond the scope of this resource. But fFor a few practical ideas to help you get started, please see the page called "Identifying a Topic" section.
Q: I'm looking for general books and articles on a particular subject. Where do I start?
A: See "Finding Information in the Library".
Q: How do I find a particular book?
A: Search the library catalog [link to http://cornell.worldcat.org/advancedsearch] or Ask a Librarian [link to http://www.library.cornell.edu/ask]. Learn more by going to "Finding and Evaluating Sources."
Q: How do I find an article if it's not in the database in full text?
A: For information about locating materials, please see "Finding and Evaluating Sources."
Q: How do I find an article I saw listed in a bibliography?
A: For information about locating books and articles, please sSee "Finding and Evaluating Sources."
Q: How do I get the full text of an article?
A: There are several ways to get to full-text articles. Please see "Getting Material" [link to http://digitalliteracy.cornell.edu/tutorial/dpl3210.html\] for more information.
Q: If a book is available off campus, can I get it?
A: Through the library's interlibrary loan and other borrowing services, you can get almost anything from anywhere without charge. In addition, the library is involved in a number of initiatives to make more articles and research available to you online for free.
Q: How do I get a book if Cornell doesn't have it?
A: Through the library's interlibrary loan and other borrowing services (for example, Borrow Direct [link to http://www.library.cornell.edu/svcs/borrow/bordir\]), you can get almost anything from anywhere without charge. In addition, the library is involved in a number of initiatives[link to http://www.library.cornell.edu/svcs/serve/scholarly\] to make more articles and research available to you online for free.
Q: What makes an article "scholarly"?
A: For information about determining whether an article would be considered scholarly, please sSee "Evaluating Sources."
Q: What does it mean to say that an article is "peer-reviewed" or "refereed"?
A: For information about determining whether an article is peer-reviewed, please sSee "Evaluating Sources."
Q: What's the difference between "primary" and "secondary" research?
A: For information about how to determine whether a source should be considered primary or secondary, please sSee "Evaluating Sources."