Rules for writers, Tenth edition - Diana Hacker, Nancy Sommers 2021

Search efficiently; master a few shortcuts to finding good sources
Thinking like a researcher; gathering sources
Research

You can save yourself time by becoming an efficient searcher of library databases and the web.

Using the library

The website hosted by your college library links to databases and other references containing articles, studies, and reports written by key researchers. Use your library’s resources, designed for academic researchers, to find the most authoritative sources for your project.

Using the web

When conducting searches, use terms that are as specific as possible. Your keywords will determine the quality of the results you see. Use clues in what you find (such as websites of organizations or government agencies that seem informative) to refine your search. The box “How to go beyond a Google search” provides more advice on searching for sources online.

Using bibliographies and citations as shortcuts

Scholarly books and articles list the works the author has cited, usually at the end. Skimming these lists is a useful shortcut for finding additional reliable sources on your topic. Let one source guide you to the next. Following the trail of citations may lead you to helpful sources and a network of relevant research about your topic.

Check URLs for clues about sponsorship

Sometimes a web search brings you to a page that looks useful, but you find it difficult to tell whether it’s legitimate. You may find it helpful to shorten a longer URL to its root address — one that ends with .org, .gov, .edu, or .com, for example — so that you can make a better judgment about the usefulness of the content of the website or web page.

DISTINGUISHING BETWEEN PRIMARY AND SECONDARY SOURCES

As you search for sources, determine whether you are looking at a primary or a secondary source.

Although a primary source is not necessarily more reliable than a secondary source, it has the advantage of being a firsthand account. You can better evaluate what a secondary source says if you have read any primary source it discusses.

HOW TO

Go beyond a Google search

You might start with Google to gain an overview of your topic, but relying on the search engine to choose your sources isn’t a research strategy. Good research involves going beyond the information available from a quick Google search. To locate reliable, authoritative sources, be strategic about how and where to search.

1. Familiarize yourself with the research conversation. Identify the current debate about the topic you have chosen and the most influential writers and experts in the debate. Where is the research conversation happening? In scholarly sources? Government agencies? The popular media?

2. Generate keywords to focus your search. Use specific words and combinations to search. Add words such as debate, disagreements, proponents, or opponents to track down the various positions in the research conversation. Use a journalist’s questions — Who? When? Where? What? How? Why? — to refine a search.

3. Search discipline-specific databases available through your school library to locate carefully chosen scholarly (peer reviewed) content that doesn’t appear in search results on the open web. Use databases such as JSTOR and Academic Search Premier, designed for academic researchers, to locate sources in the most influential publications.

4. If your topic has been in the news, try CQ Researcher, available through most college libraries. Its brief articles provide pro/con arguments on current controversies in criminal justice, law, environment, technology, health, and education.

5. Explore the Pew Research Center (pewresearch.org), which sponsors original research and nonpartisan discussions of findings and trends in a wide range of academic fields.