If you have limited time to do research, then make sure that when you are ready to find sources, you are organized and prepared.
To do your research more efficiently:
- Have your topic stated as a thesis statement. This ensures that your topic is not too broad and helps you connect with sources that are more relevant to your interests.
- List keywords that relate to your topic. These will be used in search boxes of databases to find relevant sources.
- When you are ready to search for sources in a database, link your keywords together with AND, OR, NOT to get better results.
- In a database, an article record will often include a short abstract. Read this brief summary of the article before you read the whole article to decide whether the article is relevant. If it is, email it to yourself so you can read it when you have more time.
- Consider using shorter articles from reference sources, such as encyclopedias (found in databases such as Gale eBooks). These authoritative, brief articles about a variety of topics often are excellent sources for research papers.
- Work with a librarian to find appropriate sources, so you spend less time researching and more time reading the sources and incorporating them into your paper.
