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Engl 130: Research Hacks

Refine Your Research

Remember that research refines your understanding of a topic based on a wide variety of sources and helps you to define key questions in on-going scholarly conversations. 

Use Google Scholar to see how a topic is researched by many disciplines; be sure to set up UND Library Links.

While exploring research on your topic using Google Scholar, you can see how your topic can be narrowed down to various subtopics, you can see what aspects of your topic is discussed in current sources, and you can see what you still might want to learn about your topic.

Finding Academic Articles

English 130 Topics are multidisciplinary, which means there are many academic disciplines studying the issue. Try Google Scholar to see a wide selection of research all at once. Make sure you set the UND library links!

Search Tool Links


A Narrower Search Tool such as a subject specific database will help you identify subject experts and "listen in" on their conversations more easily than general databases. Use the Databases A-Z link below:


The Library website search is great for locating a specific article or book the library owns:

Working with Academic Articles

By now, you should have an understanding of how to use databases and search engines to find articles.  Now we want to go over how to work with these articles that you've found.  This video explains strategies of how to go about reading these articles, as well as how to use articles to find further resources.

 


After watching the video, try this hands-on activity.