Mock class lesson

Welcome to an introduction to Library Research! This tutorial will demonstrate the basics of getting started with finding academic  journal articles to support your course assignment. 

Topic selection

Wherever you are, look around you. Find one thing in your immediate field of view that you can’t explain.

• What is it that you don’t understand about that thing?
• What is it that you need to find out so that you can understand it?
• How can you express what you need to find out?

For example: You can’t explain why your coat repels water. You know that it’s plastic, and that it’s designed to repel water, but can’t explain why this happens. You need to find out what kind of plastic the coat is made of and the chemistry or physics of that plastic and of water that makes the water run off instead of soaking through.

Part of identifying your own information need is giving yourself credit for what you already know about your topic. This exercise gives you a simple way to gauge your starting point, and may help you identify specific gaps in your knowledge of your topic that you will need to fill as you proceed with your research.

• Briefly summarize your idea.
• In the first column, list what you know about your topic.
• In the second column, briefly explain how you know this (heard it from the professor, read it in the textbook, saw it on a blog, etc.).
• In the last column, rate your confidence in that knowledge. Are you 100% sure of this bit of knowledge, or did you just hear it somewhere and assume it was right?

For example: I want to know how my water repellent jacket actually repels water. 

Follow these steps to get a better grasp of exactly what you are trying to find out, and to identify some initial search terms to get you started.

1. Whatever project you are currently working on, there should be some question you are trying to answer. Write your current version of that question here.
2. Now write your proposed answer to your question. This may be the first draft of your thesis statement which you will attempt to support with your research, or in some cases, the first draft of a hypothesis that you will go on to test experimentally. It doesn’t have to be perfect at this point, but based on your current understanding of your topic and what you expect or hope to find is the answer to the question you asked.
3. Look at your question and your thesis/hypothesis, and make a list of the terms common to both lists (excluding “the,” “and,” “a,” etc.). These common terms are likely the important concepts that you will need to research to support your thesis/hypothesis. They may be the most useful search terms overall or they may only be a starting point.

If none of the terms from your question and thesis/hypothesis lists overlap at all, you might want to take a closer look and see if your thesis/hypothesis really answers your research question. If not, you may have arrived at your first opportunity for revision. Does your question really ask what you’re trying to find out? Does your proposed answer really answer that question? You may find that you need to change one or both, or to add something to one or both to really get at what you’re interested in. This is part of the process, and you will likely discover that as you gather more information about your topic, you will find other ways that you want to change your question or thesis to align with the facts, even if they are different from what you hoped.