Researching a Topic

Behind every good paper is even better research. Good research means reading a lot — both as background to help you choose a topic and then to help you write your paper.

Depending on your chosen topic, your research could come from class textbooks, newspapers, professional journals, and websites. These are known as your sources.

Sources need to be reliable. To find good sources, begin at your school library, where the card catalogs and search engines can direct you to materials that have been published. When a source has been chosen for your school's library collection, you can be fairly confident that it's accurate enough to use in your paper.

Using Online Sources

When doing online research, avoid people's personal pages — it's impossible to tell if the person is an expert or just sounding off. It's best to focus your research on government sites (their domain names end in .gov), non-profit organizations (they usually end in .org), and educational sites (.edu).

Knowing which sources are considered good — and which ones aren't — is a skill that everyone gains with experience. Get your teacher or librarian's help in deciding if a source is credible.

If you don't understand what a particular source is talking about, ask your teacher what it means so you can better understand the material. Teachers can usually tell when students use information in their papers that they don't really understand.

Keeping Track of Sources

Once you've found a good source, make a note of it so that you can use it for your paper. Keep a notebook or computer document that has the source's title, the page number of the important information, and a few notes about why it's important. This will help you move ahead efficiently as you write. It will also help you to cite your sources correctly