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ENVR 300 Research Methods: Lewis & Caviglia-Harris: Session Introduction & Assignment

Library Instruction Goals

This guide should help you:

Form an approach to initiating an assignment.


Identify the use of information sources based on the type of information (i.e. books for background)

 

Use keywords from a research question or statement to search.

 

Distinguish differences between popular and scholarly articles.


Explore topics for your paper or project. What motivates you?


Explore the library's information resources.


Start to gather information for an assignment.


Draft & revise with help from librarians & departments in the GAC

Assignment and research approach

Sometimes, a structured approach to research can help to organize ideas and the way you think about information sources:  

1. Explore topic basics (casual web searching)
2. Background (library catalog: books)
3. Current research (library databases: journal articles)
4. Support your argument (source citation)
5. Drafts & revisions (research librarians & learning commons)

Your first assignment for the class is the annotation of a journal article - you should leave the library today with possibilities for this assignment, if not the article you'll ultimately choose. 

This builds into your annotated bibliography later in the semester, then a full-fledged research paper. You will be using APA. 

Citation Help

For this assignment you will be using APA as your citation style.