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First Year Research Guide

Welcome to First Year Research! In this guide, you will find online and library resources that will help you improve your research skills and assist you in every step of the research process. Navigating this guide is all up to you, but if you get stuck,

Research as a Process

Welcome! Did you know...Research starts with an idea!

  1. Explore your idea by diving into background information to learn more.
    1. Does anything specific stand out? 
    2. This smaller topic becomes your focus or research question. Once you have this focus, you are ready brainstorm related ideas and keywords!
  2. These keywords will guide you in finding resources for an assignment. Once you’ve found sources, you’ll read them and evaluate them: are they helpful? What other information do you need? 

Research isn’t a straight line. Research is more like a circle or web where you move back and forth in the process.  

This guide will walk you through the research process at your own pace. Each page has text and a video that cover the same content so you can choose how you want to learn. There are also two worksheets that help you actually get started on your research project. 

Research process as a series of circles that have arrows pointing to each other.