ROMS 1102: The Craft of Storytelling Race, Gender and Postcolonial Writing (FWS Fall 2023): Home

Research strategy: finding information efficiently

1. Identify your topic.
2. Identify the constituent parts of your topic.  List key concepts and synonyms.
3. Become more familiar with your topic.  Broaden your concept map.
4. Discover secondary sources:  articles in journals, magazines and newspapers.
5. Discover secondary sources:  books at Cornell;  French books.
6. Putting it together:  evaluate, manage, and cite your sources.

Fresco {Port au Prince, Haiti, 2011], Wikimedia Commons. Public Domain.

In this class we'll cover:

• Reference Sources for Background Material
  • Find topic summaries, key concepts, terminology and reference lists
• Finding Books
  • Find items held at Cornell (books, journal holdings, etc.)
• Finding Articles
  • Find articles, essays, book chapters and monographs
• Requesting items not available at Cornell
  • BorrowDirect and Interlibrary Loan
• Evaluating your sources
  • Some tips on how to evaluate the sources you've found
• Citing your sources
  • Guides and Resources for preparing your bibliography
• Getting Help
  • Ask a Librarian!

See the Library's Introduction to Research web page for more tips and strategies.

• Research Strategy: Finding Information Efficiently
• Ebooks at Cornell
• Citation Styles

Never pay for an article or book or access to resources.

In most cases (except for textbooks), the Cornell Library has online journals, newspapers, magazines, ebooks and print books, or can get them for no charge to you!