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Make an appointment with a research librarian. From the , click on the heading “Get Help With Research.” Then, under the heading “Research Assistance and Guides,” click on the tab “Subject Librarians.” Voila! You have the location, email, and telephone contact information for librarians by subject area.

For reference guides like the Encyclopedia Britannica, the Oxford English Dictionary, etc., click on “Articles and Databases” from the , and then go to “Dictionaries/Encyclopedias” under the heading “Looking for Something Else?”

For newspaper articles, click on “Articles and Databases” from the , and then go to LexisNexis. You will want to select a source, and you may also want your search to cover multiple years. Be sure to navigate the appropriate drop boxes.

For journal articles, click on “Articles and Databases” from the , and then select a subject area from the drop-down list (starts with “African-American Studies”).

For books in the , search the library catalog, located in several places on the library main page. Select a search type from the drop-down box to get better results; you may want to try “Subject Keyword” if you’re doing a more general search, or “Title” if you know exactly what you want. (Don’t forget to drop “the,” “an,” and other first-word articles when searching a title – for example, searching for “The Van” does not find Roddy Doyle’s novel The Van, but searching for “Van” does.) We also recommend doing an Advanced search.

In fields where new data and ideas are constantly emerging, be careful to check the publication dates of your sources. Especially in the sciences and social sciences, research from fifty years ago will be out of date and will inaccurately represent the present state of the field.

As a general rule when doing any kind of research, know that the Internet is full of questionable and sometimes thoroughly unreliable sources. This is not to say that information from electronic sources is not ever valid; plenty of well-respected journals and other resources are available electronically through the . Just remember: Googling to find leads is one thing; Googling to find material to cite is typically frowned upon.

You may want to read around in general encyclopedias to get ideas and acquire a basic familiarity with your topic, but do not depend upon them too much in your final paper. Strong research papers engage with more specialized sources.

The library offers so many resources to aid you with gathering information for your research paper. Check out the library’s  and make time to “Ask a Librarian” and connect with one in person. You will be glad you did!