Powerpoint about basic academic research.

1. Academic Research
 Research takes time & requires that you be
both flexible and persistent.
 Research requires you to develop a
relationship with information
 Identify & focus topic
 Locate and read background information:
sources for working bib, keyword development,
position/context building
 Locate relevant, credible sources
 Books, magazine, webpages,
government documents, library databases
 Evaluate! Evaluate! Evaluate!
 Cite
 Writing occurs throughout all 5 steps

2. Keywords
 Keywords are the foundation of your research
 Focus on the concepts/ideas of your research
question
 More than search terms – organizations,
discipline-specific vocabulary, jargon,
authors, synonyms
 Avoid keywords that assign subjective
value/judgement or weasel words
 Avoid search words like: pro/con, benefits, impacts,
dangers of, negative/positive, facts, etc.
 Weasel words: experts, people say,
award-winning, natural, improved

3. Search Strategies
 No thesis statements – avoid complex
phrases
 Generally avoid acronyms
 When available, use original source
 Bibliographies or references at end web article or
Wikipedia page, news reports, newspapers,
government reports
 Use the word “and” to connect keywords or
concepts and the word “or” to search using
synonyms

5. Sources
 Books & eBooks
 Broad topic coverage
 Explore multiple issues surrounding topic
 Table of contents & index
 Slow publishing time – can be dated information
 Newspapers
 Current events – published daily
 General audience
 Anecdotal Evidence (claim based on personal experience – not
necessarily fact)
 Local approach (ex: Louisiana newspapers for “Duck Dynasty”)
 Magazines
 Popular interest or current events
 Can be specific in scope (Psychology Today, Motor Trend, The
Economist, Wired)
 Written by journalists hired by publication (vetting)
 Useful for concept building, keyword building

6. Sources
 Websites
 Require a critical eye – Evaluate, Evaluate, Evaluate!!!
 Great for learning background information
 Government websites are great for data & statistics
 Find popular opinion
 Multi-media approach to information
 CRAAP test
 Library Databases
 Information originated in print – NOT WEB SOURCES
 Cited as a database article
 Provides citations & full text articles found in newspapers,
magazines, trade publications, and academic journals
 Author is either journalist or scholar
 A “one-stop shop” for research – academic research articles from
peer-reviewed journals

7. Sources
Websites: use to gain foundational
knowledge (background reading,
keyword development)
Popular periodicals and news: audience is
general & sources often not cited, found
on web or in print, authorship can be
questionable, serves to entertain
Ex: Huffington Post, about.com, webMD,
small local papers, Op-Ed, The Daily Mail,
People
Substantive News/Periodicals &
Gov’t sites: written by journalist,
audience is well-education, sources
cited, or data collected from agency
Ex: NYT, Nation, Economist, WSJ,
DoJ, CDC, Gallup, Pew
Academic Journal
Articles & Critical Books:
Peer-Reviewed,
bibliography of sources
always included,
authored by experts,
audience is academics or
those in the field
Found via EBSCOhost, Gale,
Proquest, JSTOR library databases