Now that you know what sort of essay you’re supposed to write, what the question is that you’re supposed to be answering, and how your professor expects you to provide evidence of your research while avoiding plagiarism, you’re ready to start researching.
First off, the internet is not really your friend. It’s more of a frenemy. There is so much crap on line, even on the sites that everyone uses all the time. Unfortunately, you can’t just Google your topic and use whatever websites show up on the first page of results. Academic essays require academic sources.
That said, there is a lot of interesting stuff online, and even those general purpose sites can provide you with a place to start. They can give you ideas about the sort of questions you should be asking, and, if you look around, some of them have lists of sources. If they do, go find those original sources and quote them directly. Don’t quote Wikipedia. As good as it is, it is not a valid academic source.
Alright. Now that you’ve been warned, let me say that there are good websites out there. They are full of academic journals and reference materials, but most of them require you to buy a membership. It might be that your university provides access to these sites from your library, and if so, use them. If not, and you’re serious about your studies and have the funds, I highly recommend buying your own membership. These sites are totally worth it.
In most cases, probably all of them, you’ll find that a lot of the reference material you need isn’t available online at all. The only way to get at it is to visit a library and read a book, or a print journal. Books are a key part of academia. Learn how to access your school’s library. Make friends with a librarian and treat them with respect. They are the gatekeepers to vast stores of knowledge.
Taking notes
I’ve mentioned it before, but I’ll bring it up again because this is important.
First. Have a single document, properly named, in which you put all your research notes. This way you don’t lose anything (so long as you’ve got your files backed up to the cloud somewhere).
Second. Use the proper referencing style with all your notes. I suggest that, when you start reading a book, journal, or web source related to your topic, that you make a note, in proper referencing style, of the source – author name, book or journal title, article title, source URL, whatever. Then, under that, write down, or copy/paste, any sections that look interesting making sure to include page numbers with every separate note. If that snippet sparked a thought, put that down, too, right under the other note but clearly separated from it so you know it’s yours and not the author’s. Don’t forget, you can probably quote your professor, too, so long as you use the proper referencing for a live lecture. I’m not sure I recommend this though. Most professors prefer you to come up with your own ideas and sources rather than just quoting them back to themselves. They already know what they think about a subject, they don’t need you to tell them. Still, you might get to attend a guest lecture, and if you do, make sure to take clear notes.
Types of sources (and where to find them)
First things first. A warning. The internet is full of garbage. Anyone with a computer and a wifi connection can post anything they want, regardless of whether it’s factual or not. A lot of them have their own versions of ‘credible sources’, that doesn’t make them something that will be acceptable to your professor.
So, where do you start? With the assigned reading. This will, most probably, be academic in nature, which means that it will be full of properly referenced quotations. That’s where you find your further sources. Look for the books and articles that those authors are referencing and read them. Follow that chain as deep as you can.
As mentioned earlier, your university library, and the librarians in them, are a good source of information. You will be able to browse by topic, and might even be able to get access to the websites that archive academic papers and articles. If you can get on one of those, you’ll strike gold. You might have to dig a lot before you get what you need, but that’s part of the academic experience. Researching is a skill, and a highly valued one at that. Being able to find credible information amid all the dross that’s out there is the sort of skill that a lot of companies pay big bucks for.
Just don’t forget to keep track of everywhere you go, and all the places you pull information from. And make sure you reference it correctly. Getting busted for plagiarism will be a dead albatross around your neck for the rest of your career. And not getting to use that dope quote because you forgot to note down the source can be really painful. I won’t say it will affect your grade, because, who knows with a might have been? But you’ll probably feel like it affected your grade, so make sure you keep complete notes.
Keeping an open mind and thinking critically
You need to keep the question/topic statement at the forefront of your mind while you’re researching. When you started, you probably had some idea of what you thought your answer would be. After all, you probably weren’t entirely ignorant of the topic before choosing it. But while you’re researching, keep an open mind. Look at what the different experts are saying. Question their ideas. Question their conclusions. And, if they don’t agree with what you thought before, ask yourself where they disagree. Did they provide enough evidence to convince you that your own expectations or assumptions were wrong? If so, you will probably need to change the answer you were planning to give.
And one final point when it comes to the question and all the research you do. You might find, as I have, that the topic statement/question is actually misleading, or just incorrect. Professors are busy. Sometimes they just keep the topic lists their predecessor used even though more recent research has shown the premise behind those questions to be wrong. Or maybe they’re just being tricksy. Whichever it is, it doesn’t matter. If you find that all the information you find contradicts the premise of the question you have two choices. The easy one is to drop that topic question and find another one. The second one, and the more interesting one, is to write an essay that shows that the topic question is wrong. You still need to answer that question, but, in answering it, you can raise your own, and then, in the essay, prove why your question is the one that should be asked.
This is risky though. Some professors love it because you’re giving them something new, and you’re proving you researched the heck out of that topic and that you gave a lot of critical thought to it, too. And both of those things are what university is supposed to be encouraging you to do. Some professors, though, don’t like having their authority challenged, and having you come along and critique the premise of their questions irritates the heck out of them. So, use with caution, and only when there is an issue with the premise. Do Not Use This if you’re switching the questions just because you don’t like the one on offer. There has to be a valid reason, a reason that you can prove through research and the use of authoritative sources, why the question is wrong.
