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Research Process for Assignments

This guide will walk you through the research process, from selecting a topic to doing your search and putting it all together.

  • For daily information, Google isn't a bad place to start. For real research, Google isn’t good enough.
    • The problems with Google:
      • Google searches give TOO MANY RESULTS, most of which are not relevant to your needs.
      • Who created those results? What authority do they have regarding the topic?
      • Search results have a commercial bias: someone is trying to sell you something. When you search in Google, the results of your search are stacked in order by which source has paid the most for high placement.
    • Library resources such as the article databases:
      • Do not have a commercial bias
      • Have been produced by authoritative scholars and vetted by those experts’ peers (hence “peer-reviewed”).
    • You can start with Google, but you need to go deeper and use better sources.