It’s the middle of November, which means that many students have been given their end-of-term paper assignments. Before jumping into the fun world of research, sometimes it’s helpful to simply spend a little bit of time reading and skimming through articles and websites to gather some general information about the paper’s topic. This not only provides you with a good background on the subject, it’s also an easy way to slowly—and painlessly—begin the writing process. Wading into the academic waters is sometimes better than diving head first into the unknown. Below are some websites to check out when beginning research.*
Internet Public Library: This site is great when searching for general information on a topic. You can search for a specific topic, or you can browse the many categories. You also have the option of searching for newspaper and magazine articles from many different countries.
The WWW Virtual Library: This site provides links to resources for an array of subjects—from agriculture to women’s studies, there are a tone of topics and sub-topics to explore. This site might also lead to sources that you could use when researching your paper’s topic.
Google: This might seem like a pretty obvious suggestion, but many students often overlook this site. Whenever you’re given a paper assignment, simply type the subject into Google’s search box and peruse the top websites that currently pop up for that subject. You might learn something you didn’t already know about the topic, or you might discover that it’s been in the news lately.
* More great sources are found in the College PaperBuddy e-book.