Hello Again! The subject of today’s discussion is something that you all probably think you are doing just right….WRONG! Don’t worry I was just as shocked as you when I found out that my research skills were lacking at the college level. Think back to your research papers in high school, many of your teachers just wanted you to relay information given online in your own words and call it a day. However, college professors want us to form our own inferences based on what we find online, eww. This common misunderstanding is that research is more than just simply finding facts from the internet.
Another common mistake is that we believe the words “search” and “research” to mean the same thing. This is super important in understanding our writing. Research involves more of taking a critical look at the quality of information you are finding rather than simply finding things that fit your topic. A search typically has a regular question that has a write or wrong answer while research has a research-based question and is one that can’t normally be answered in a yes or no format. This is where all that stuff we learned in high school about reliability and bias in sources comes in handy! All in all, remember the difference between search and research, this will save your butt when it comes to forming actual research questions for your papers. AND always always remember to notate credible sources to back up your information because they WILL ask to see it. A place that has helped me look for scholarly works to cite is Google Scholar. Check out the click provided below on how and when to use it. Until next time!