The Research Process: Finding Effective Sources

By Emily Winters

As we draw close to midterms and the midway point of the semester, many students are facing large final papers or research projects. Seemingly an insurmountable and overwhelming task, writing a large paper can be more manageable if you break it up into individual steps. In many cases, a professor will do this work for you by setting various due dates.

The first step of your research project is most often research! How can you spend your research time effectively and find the best sources that will work for you?

Here are some tips for finding your sources:

1. The first step in any great research paper is what you’ve heard called “reputable sources.” Why do I need a peer-reviewed article? You want to use information you can trust to be correct when you are crafting your argument. Your research question and thesis will be in some way based on these outside sources. You don’t want to build a house on a cracked foundation!

2. How do you find peer-reviewed sources? The simplest way to accomplish this is to use a reputable search engine! This includes the Paul Robeson library, or any of the databases that your Rutgers student ID allows you to access (you can find a list here).

3. Use search filters! Not only is there a filter for “peer-reviewed articles,” but on the Paul Robeson library (and other search sites like JSTOR), you can filter for date of publication, subject, source type (are you looking for a book or an article), and more! This will help narrow down your results - you do not want to search through 1000s of results!

4. When searching, use quotation marks and conjunctions to narrow down your search further. This will enable you to only get results that include your search terms in a specific way.

5. Experiment with different search terms!

   1. Ex. “deep sea” + “fishing” v “deep sea fishing”

What next? How can I check if my source is reputable? Once you begin to read and take notes as you read, this will make more sense.

For the second part of this process - featuring a note-taking guide and important questions to ask yourself as you read - stay tuned until Thursday!

Do you have questions, or would you like to schedule for peer tutoring? Leave us a comment or open a chat conversation with us by clicking the “Let’s Chat” button. We hope to hear from you soon.