While there's no deficit of information on the Web, a few key strategies can help students efficiently and effectively locate the material they need to complete projects:
Use the right search engines
Google, Yahoo, and Bing are probably your best choices for performing research. Google offers Google Scholar and Google Book Search. Google Scholar helps students locate articles from academic publishers, peer-reviewed papers and abstracts. Google Book Search assists research on information from thousands of scanned volumes.
Employ the most effective search terms
Learn how to search effectively for information. Search terms should be highly specific and key in on exactly the material you are looking for. An important tip is to use quotation marks around your search terms. Quotation marks will help you locate pages that contain only the exact text you entered.
Consult online databases
Several online databases, such as ProQuest or EBSCOhost, are available to students. Many learning institutions subscribe to these databases, so students can access the information free of charge. Online scholarly databases can be abundant information sources accessible from your own home.
Use Wikipedia only as a starting place
Wikipedia is a great place to start your research - the goal here is to get a good overview of the subject you're writing about, and Wikipedia is great for this purpose. When you are ready to write, however, you'll need an abundance of additional sources and should probably not cite Wikipedia in your paper.
Utilize bibliographies
Once you've found even one credible online source, you can simply access its bibliography to locate many more sources for you to consult. Just skim through the bibliography and jot down titles associated with your research.
Develop a research question to help you focus
You need a "working thesis" from which your actual thesis will emerge after you perform your research. This is simply a primary question you want to address. Evaluate new online material according to whether or not it addresses your working thesis. Focus by keeping your key question in the forefront of your mind.
Break down your subject
Create an outline of the elements of your subject that you need to comprehend, and then deal with these elements one by one. Associations between the elements will reveal themselves when you write your first draft.
Break down your subject
Pay attention to the publication date of your online sources; most of your sources should not be any older than 10 years. If you're having trouble locating current sources, one strategy is to use a search engine such as Google to locate the homepages of major researchers you have identified. There you will likely find their most recent publications.
Becoming an "expert" on a research topic, while challenging, can actually be a fun process if it is broken down into segments, and if the right search tools and procedures are employed. Using the Internet has made research a whole new ball game-and it's much preferable to the old days of searching through library stacks.
