This page will help guide you through the entire research process, from start to finish.
- Choosing a Topic
Brainstorm for topic ideas, tips
- Background Information
Encyclopedias, general news articles, bibliographies
- Finding Articles
Identify important concepts, choose subject area, recent or historical, choose database or index, search, evaluate search results
- Finding Materials at University of Illinois Libraries
Necessary citation information, finding and requesting journals, tutorial
- Evaluation
Evaluating web-based resources
- Using Refereed/Peer-Reviewed Research
Understand, identify, and use research from refereed and peer-reviewed sources
- Citation Analysis
What citation analysis is, and how it might benefit you in your research
- Annotated Bibliographies
How to create an annotated bibliography
- Writing a Research Proposal
You may need to request support for sponsored research, instruction, or extension projects
- Creating New Information
Resources to help with the issues you may face in creating new information
- Dissertation & Thesis Writing Tips
Tips if you're having trouble with the process of writing your thesis or dissertation
- Citing Sources
Documenting resources used in your research
- Productivity Tools and Current Awareness
Organize your research, collaborate with others, and stay up-to-date in your field
- Share Your Research
Communicating your research with the larger community
- Copyright and Visual Media
Find out when you can use an image and when you need permission
Choosing a Topic
If you know you are interested in doing research in a broad subject area, try to think of ways you can make your subject more specific.
Example: writing a paper about global warming
Brainstorm for topic ideas
What aspects of your topic are you interested in?
- Environmental-- The impact of global warming on the sea level.
- Economic-- The impact of global warming on the agricultural industry.
- Political-- Frequently representatives of countries gather together to address pollution problems that may contribute to global warming. Has this process been effective?
What time period or geographic area are you interested in?
- Geographic Area-- How will global warming affect developing countries?
- Time Period-- Have reports of global warming increased over the past 10 years?
What do you already know about the topic?
- I've heard that there is disagreement in the scientific community about the existence of global warming. What are the arguments on both sides of this issue?
Some tips to consider when choosing a topic:
- When selecting a topic, be sure to choose a subject area that is of genuine interest to you.
- Consult your instructor, as he or she may be able to give advice concerning paper topics.
- In order to articulate your ideas, it helps to express your topic idea as a question.
Example: Global Warming > The effect of global warming on the agriculture industry > Will global warming cause the grain belt to move north? Will farmers have to change their crops as a result of global warming?
- What if you don't have enough information to express your topic idea as a specific question? If this is the case, doing some background reading can help you to articulate your research topic.
Background Information
Finding background information about a topic is an important step of the research process. If you are interested in pursuing a topic which is unfamiliar to you, reading an encyclopedia or a general article about the subject can allow you to articulate your topic idea and assist in pointing out areas for further research.
Sources to consult for background information include:
Encyclopedias
Encyclopedias are available in both general and subject specific formats. If you are just beginning your research and need general background information, sources like the Encyclopedia Britannica or the Encyclopedia Americana can be good starting points. Subject specific encyclopedias can give you background information about a particular discipline or subject area. Examples of subject specific encyclopedias include
The McGraw-Hill Encyclopedia of Science and Technology and the
International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences. There are many encyclopedias available covering different subject areas. If you are having trouble finding an encyclopedia to use for background information in your research, be sure to
Ask a Librarian.
General news articles
News articles in a newspaper or general magazine can give you a starting point for your research. Article databases that you can use to find general articles include
Readers' Guide, and
InfoTrac. Please see the databases listed under General Interest Databases on the
Article Database page for more information.
Bibliographies
Experts in a particular field will sometimes compile lists of useful resources for people pursuing research. Many bibliographies on a variety of topics are published in book form and are available at the Illinois library. The home pages for some UIUC departmental libraries may also provide information about bibliographies for their particular subject. For more information, please see the
LibGuides page.
Quick tip:
To search the library catalog for bibliographies, do a
keyword subject search by typing the word bibliography and words that describe the topic of your research. For example, if you are researching a paper on global warming, you could run a search for 'bibliography global warming' to see what resources are available. For more information, please visit
Top Ten Tips for Tackling Tricky Database Queries.
Finding Articles
Searching for sources
- Identify important concepts in your topic.
- Once you have articulated your topic, try to pick out important concepts or keywords which you can use when you search for articles.
Example: How will global warming affect developing countries?
- Identify the subject area.
For the global warming and developing countries topic there are a couple subject areas to consider when trying to choose a database or index. The issue of global warming could be described as environmental or scientific. The fact that the issue of developing countries is also a factor means that the subject area also involves international issues.
Consider how recent or historical your search is.
Since global warming is a recent concern, finding the most current articles would be useful.
- Choose the appropriate article database or index.
- Look at the Online Journals and Databases and match the subject areas of your topic with the subject areas of the different article databases that are available for you to search.
Example: For the Global Warming topic, you can look at the Life Sciences & Medicine database subject area and see that there is an Environmental Sciences and Pollution Management database that deals with environmental issues. By looking at the Social Sciences, Business, & Education database subject area, you can also see that the
PAIS Archive (Public Affairs Information Service) database might have articles dealing with developing countries. Searching both of these databases for articles relating to your topic would be a good place to start your research.
- Run the search.
- Think about the important concepts and subject area of your topic. Choose keywords that you can use to search the databases.
Example: In the topic "How will global warming affect developing countries?" the important concepts are global warming and developing countries. One way to make sure that your search for articles is effective is to think of synonyms or additional words to describe your topic.
global warming: greenhouse effect, climate change
developing countries: developing nations, underdeveloped countries, third world
- Most article databases allow you to build your searches by combining similar concepts with the word OR. This will result in a broader search.
For example: global warming OR greenhouse effect OR climate change will find any article that has any of the three concepts in it. You can combine dissimilar concepts to create a focused search.
Example: The search "global warming AND developing countries" will find any article that has both concepts in it. For example, the search "(global warming OR greenhouse effect) AND developing countries" will find any article that has either global warming orgreenhouse effect as terms and the term developing countries.
Evaluate your results
- Look at the number of article citations you were able to retrieve. If you retrieved more articles than you expected and they don't seem to be relevant to your topic, you may need to add another concept or keyword to your search statement in order to narrow your search. If you retrieved fewer articles than you expected, perhaps your search statement was too narrow. You might want to take some keywords out of your search statement to create a broader search which will retrieve more articles.
- Look at the abstract or subject headings of the article citations you have retrieved to determine if they are relevant to your research.
- If you want more information about how to search article databases, workshops are offered every semester.
- If you are having any trouble searching the article databases, check out tips on locating articles or be sure to Ask a Librarianfor help.
Finding Materials at University of Illinois Libraries
Necessary Information
Once you have successfully searched and found citations or references to articles which you think might be useful, the next step is to find copies of the articles in question. In order to search for the location of a journal that contains an article you are interested in, it is necessary to have the following information:
- Title of the journal
- Date the article was published
- Year and volume of the journal
- Page numbers of the article
Once you have this information, you can use the
Online Library Catalog or
Online Journals & Databases to find the location of the journal you need. Since you know the exact title of the journal, use the
Title search in the catalog to search for the location of the journal at the University of Illinois library.
If you want additional information about how to search the Online Library Catalog, be sure to
Ask a Librarian for help.
Evaluation
It is important to carefully examine the articles you find in order to see if they will truly be helpful to you in your research. The list of questions below is intended to provide a starting point for evaluating an article in four major categories: accuracy, content, author, and date.
- Accuracy-- Based on your knowledge of the subject, does the article seem to be accurate? Are any conclusions supported or backed up by convincing data?
- Coverage-- Does the article fully address the issues raised? Is the coverage comprehensive, or do you need additional sources? Is the article objective, or does it seem to be based on opinion?
- Authority-- Are the authors authorities in their fields? Have they published extensively on this topic? Are they affiliated with a reputable university or institution?
- Currency-- When was the article published? Is it current enough for your topic? Do you need to find similar articles that are more up-to-date?
Evaluating Web-Based Resources
Are you using Web-based resources in your research? Web ages also need to be evaluated to determine if they will be useful in your research. In most cases you may apply the criteria you would use in evaluating print resources to the evaluation of Web-based resources. It is important to remember that unlike scholarly print publications, where articles are subjected to a process of review, anyone can publish on the Web. Many webpages are also designed to be commercial as opposed to educational. For more information about evaluating Web resources, please see the following pages:
You can learn more about how to evaulate your sources on the Undergraduate Library
"Is it Scholarly?" page.
Using Peer Refereed/Peer-Reviewed Research
Your professors may require you to use peer-reviewed or refereed journal articles for your assignments. If you ever do independent projects, you will need to know how to identify refereed/peer-reviewed research. The LEARN to Use the Library
Using Refereed/Peer-Reviewed Research tutorial will help you understand, identify, and use research from refereed and peer-reviewed sources by examining specific examples from the University of Illinois.
Citation Analysis
In order to gauge the impact of a particular publication, it can be useful to know the number of times it has been cited by other authors. Counting citations is often referred to as "citation analysis." "Citation chasing" - discovering other publications through citations, is a way of following a scholarly conversation and learning more about your research topic. For a tutorial on this topic, see the LEARN to Use the Library page on
Citation Analysis. One type of citation analysis is Impact Factor, which you can learn more about on the
Impact FactorLEARN site page. For information on alternatives to traditional citation counting (called "altmetrics") visit the
Altmetrics LEARN site page.
Annotated Bibliographies
As a part of your coursework you may be asked to create an annotated bibliogrpahy. An annotated bibliography is a bibliography in which each source is briefly summarized and/or evaluated. An annotation can be helpful to the researcher in evaluating whether the source is relevant to a given topic or line of inquiry.
The purpose of an annotated bibliography is to reflect on the things that you have read in your research and begin to synthesize the ideas you have gathered. An annotated bibliography may point your readers towards more sources on the topic that may be interesting or helpful for them.
Creating an annotated bibliography can be a very natural part of the research process. As you identify research questions and find sources that answer those questions, take notes on the materials that you've read and create a comprehensive list of sources. (
RefWorks can help you keep track of your sources in an organized fashion.)
For each source on your list, you should summarize the content, assess the quality and relevancy of the source to your project, and reflect on the big ideas explicated in the source. Write a few sentences based on your reflections.
Depending on your field, you may cite your sources in a variety of styles, such as APA, MLA, or Chicago. See the
citation guide for more information. Annotations may be in different formats depending on your class and professor, but usually you should just write a few sentences that summarize and evaluate the work.
Sample entry:
Gilbert, Pam. "From Voice to Text: Reconsidering Writing and Reading in the English Classroom." English Education, 23.4 (1991): 195-211.
Gilbert provides some insight into the concept of "voice" in textual interpretation, and points to a need to move away from the search for voice in reading. Her reasons stem from a growing danger of "social and critical illiteracy," which might be better dealt with through a move toward different textual understandings. Gilbert suggests that theories of language as a social practice can be more useful in teaching. Her ideas seem to disagree with those who believe in a dominant voice in writing, but she presents an interesting perspective.
The annotation above is effective because it briefly summarizes the article's argument, places the argument in the context of the field, and evaluates the article.
Learn more:
Writing a Research Proposal
At some point, you may need to write a research proposal. A proposal is a request for support of sponsored research, instruction, or extension projects. Proposals are intended to answer questions about the nature of the project, how the project relates to the sponsor's interests, what your background is in this area of research, how you will carry out the project, and why you are the right person for the project. There are a few different types of proposals, and there are particular components of a research proposal. For more information about research proposals, go to the LEARN to Use the Library
Writing a Research Proposal page.
Dissertation & Thesis Writing Tips
Creating New Information
The library can help you not only access information sources but also create new information. Below are some issues you may face in creating new information, and how the library can help.
Academic Integrity
Academic Integrity means honesty and responsibility in scholarship. Students and faculty alike must obey rules of honest scholarship, which means that all academic work should result from an individual's own efforts. Intellectual contributions from others must be consistently and responsibly acknowledged. Academic work completed in any other way is fraudulent.
Visualization of Research
Working with Data
Data Management Plan (DMP) Tool: From the website - "The DMP Tool allows you to: create ready-to-use data management plans for specific funding agencies, meet funder requirements for data management plans, get step-by-step instructions and guidance for your data management plan as you build it, and in many cases, get data management advice and resources for your specific institution."
Scanning and Digitization Services
The Center for Writing Studies - Writer's Workshop
Citing Sources
In order to avoid plagiarism or other academic integrity infractions at the University of Illinois, it is necessary to cite your sources. Go to the
Cite a Source LEARN site page. Learn more about why citing sources is necessary on the
Academic Integrity & Plagiarism page.
Usually a professor will tell you if there is a preferred citation style for your research project. The list that follows is a sample of some of the online resources that are available for people with style and grammar questions.
Sharing your research, whether locally or internationally, requires you to make decision regarding your work. Consult with yoursubject specialist librarian to learn more.
Productivity Tools and Current Awareness
The
Productivity Tools for Scholarship LEARN site page provides links to a number of tools for staying organized, taking notes, organizing and annotating pdf's, managing data, managing projects, and collaborating with others. The
Current Awareness LEARN site page provides information for how to stay up-to-date in your field, including using RSS feeds to receive updated information from online sources.
Share Your Research
The publication process - videos
Guide to publishing with Cell Press. Are you looking to submit an article for publication for the first time? These videos provide an excellent introduction to the submission process. From the website: "Watch four Cell Press editors answer questions from three early career scientists about preparing, submitting and publishing an article in a Cell Press journal." Videos include discussions on preparing a manuscript submission, what happens after the initial submission, the decision process, and what happens after manuscript acceptance.
ACS: Publishing your research 101. The American Chemical Society produced videos that give an overview of the publishing process including "How to write a paper to communicate your research," "writing your cover letter," "Selecting peers to suggest as reviewers," "Ethical considerations for authors and reviewers," "The review process for authors and reviewers," and "Open access and ACS AuthorChoice."
Understanding copyright
