The Research Cycle
1. Explore & Refine Your Topic
Need to brainstorm a suitable topic? Once you've picked a possible topic, it's a good idea to do some background research to learn more about your topic. After you've done some background research, it's time to refine or narrow your topic. The library is a great source for brainstorming and background information!
2. Find Sources
After you've refined your topic, it's time to start searching for sources. Consider your assignment requirements such as whether you need scholarly sources or the most recent research.
3. Search Effectively & Evaluate Always
Not finding what you need? Learn basic and advanced search strategies to find relevant results. It's always a good idea to evaluate sources before using them in your assignment.
4. Write
Pull everything together by tying information from your sources together with your own observations/experiments and analysis. Share your results and discussions/conclusions in a cohesive report/presentation. The LPC RAW Center has many tutorials to assist you. Don't forget to look at the Citing page on this guide for tips on proper citation formatting.