10 Steps Toward Better Research by Dustin Wax

A little while back, I wrote about ways for students to add a little extra kick to their research
papers. Those strategies were meant for students who had already mastered the basics of
performing research, not students just getting started doing research and writing papers. As with
writing, though, research skills are rarely taught very clearly professors assume students know
or can figure out how to do good research, or at best turn their students over to a librarian for a
tour of the librarys facilities and resources. Is it any wonder that so many university students
rely on Wikipedia as the first and last stop in their research itinerary?
To help students get up to speed on basic research skills, heres 10 tips to help you find, organize,
and use the information you need to put together a decent research paper.

1. Schedule! I tell my students that the first step in writing a research paper is
to admit you have a research paper. Write up a schedule with a series of
milestones to accomplish by a specific date (e.g. find 10 sources by
September 20, finish preliminary research by October 15), and keep to it. You
will need time to get an overview of what material is out there, find out
whats in your library, select relevant material, read it, take notes, and start
putting it together and to do a second wave of research to clear up points
raised in the writing of your first draft.
2. Start, dont end, with Wikipedia. Wikipedia is a great place to start your
research spend some time searching for keywords related to your topic,
browsing the links you find on each page, and following their suggested
resources. Take notes, especially of any good sources they recommend. The
goal here is to get a good overview of the subject youre writing
about, and Wikipedia is far better for that than most print sources, because
of its hyperlink ed nature. By the time you get ready to write, though, you
should have much better sources at your command than Wikipedia, so avoid
citing it in your paper.
3. Mine bibliographies. Once youve found a good, solid academic book or
essay on your topic, youre golden at the end there will be a list of dozens
or hundreds of sources for you to look up. You can usually skim through the
bibliography and note down anything whose title sounds relevant to
your research. Academic authors arent very creative with their titles, so it is
usually pretty easy to tell what their work is about from just the title or
subtitle. Go back through and see if you recognize any of the authors names
these too might be worth following up. once you start finding the work the
first book referenced, do the same thing with their bibliographies soon
youll have a list of far more sources than you need (but you need them,
because your library may not have all the books and journals referred to, and

inter-library loan is so slow as to be useless for students who need to finish by

the end of the semester).
4. Have a research question in mind. Technically, your thesis should emerge
from your research, when you have data in front of you. But you need a kind
of working thesis while doing your research a question you want to
answer. As you come across new material, ask yourself if it looks like it will
help you answer your question. Anything that looks relevant but doesnt help
answer your question you can put back. Its tempting to gather a lot of
background material, and some is necessary, but too much will waste your
time without contributing to your research. Get one or two good sources for
background (your initial Wikipedia searching should be adequate in most
cases) and then keep focused by working towards an answer to your
research question.
5. Deal with one piece at a time. Dont try to tackle your subject all at once.
Get enough of a sense of the topic that you can create an outline of the
things you need to understand, and then deal with each piece on its own.
Youll find the connections between the pieces when you write your first draft.
6. Use a system. Start your research with an idea of how you plan to collect
and organize your notes and data. Although Ive written papers using index
cards before, my favorite system is to use a one-subject notebook. At the top
of a fresh page, I write the full bibliographic reference for a book or paper,
then copy quotes and write notes both tagged with the page numbers they
came from interspersed with thoughts and ideas that occur to me as Im
reading. Id love to use a computer more efficiently when doing research, and
have built databases and tried wikis and outliners and other kinds of
software, but Ive never found a system that worked well I spent more time
fiddling with the software than getting work done. Whatever system you
decide on, make sure that every quote, fact, and thought is tied in
some way to its source so that you can easily insert references while
youre writing.
7. Know your resources. Spend some time getting to know what resources,
both online and offline, your library to offer. Most libraries offer tours to
students, or talk to a research librarian or at the least, walk through the
library to get a feel for what is where, paying special attention to the
microfilm repository and periodicals, which youll use a lot in the course of
most research projects. Most university libraries also subscribe to a number
of academic databases, and most are now accessible online get to know
the research material you can access from home. J-Stor, for instance,
holds full-text photographic copies of hundreds of journals, all easily
searchable. Theres nothing quite like thinking of something in the middle of
the night, logging on, and printing out two or three relevant journal articles to
review in the morning.
8. Ask for help. Use the human resources available to you as well as the
material resources. Most professors spend their office hours waiting in
disappointment for a student to drop in and give them something to justify

the time theyre required to keep an open hour be that student! Ask for
help in finding and evaluating sources, or for help in figuring out what to do
with the material youve collected so far. Another often-overlooked resource
is your friendly neighborhood librarian. Librarians are, in my estimation, the
best people on Earth they know the material in their charge forwards and
backwards, they are deeply concerned with seeing it used, and they have
committed their lives to making information more available. Most librarians
will be happy to help you find relevant material for your project, and
some will even locate specific pieces of hard-to-find information for you.
Dont forget to ask your fellow student for help, too some of the might
have come across work directly relevant to your topic.
9. Carry an idea book. As you start really getting into your project, your mind
will start churning through what youre reading, even when youre not
consciously working on it. If youre like me, youll be struck by sudden
revelations at the least convenient times in the bathroom, in the shower,
at the supermarket. or while getting ready for bed. Keep a small notebook
and a pen with you everywhere (well, maybe not in the shower
although I do keep dry erase markers by the sink so I can write down quick
thoughts on the bathroom mirror when I get out of the shower); jot down
notes whenever an idea crosses your mind, and transfer these notes into
your research log (or software, or whatever) as soon as you can.
10.Bring it up to date. Pay attention to the publication date of your material
while its ok to use older material, ideally youd like the bulk of your
references to come from the last 10 years or so. If research in your topic
seems to dry up a decade or so back, it might be because the field moved on,
but it also might be because funding opportunities disappeared, a major
researcher died, or any number of accidental reasons. One trick is to Google
the major researchers whose work youve found and see if you can
find their homepages most will list recent publications and their current
research activities it could be that someone has a book about to come out,
or reports published in obscure or foreign journals. If so, you might try interlibrary loan, or in some cases, try contacting the researcher herself and ask if
they can send you a draft or reprint. Be courteous, explain what youre
working on and what youre trying to find out, where your research has taken
you so far, and what light you hope their work can shed on your topic. Do not
ask for a list of references or what your thesis should be nobody wants to
do a students work for them.

These tips will help put a decent bibliography and a body of notes and data at your fingertips
when you sit down to write up your paper. Although evaluating sources is also a necessary part
of doing good research, it will have to wait for its own post, as its too big a topic to reduce to a
bullet point here. A librarian or your professor can help, especially if you restrict yourself to
books and journals available in your university library. Internet sources are trickier, as it takes no
effort at all these days to put up a professional-looking website saying whatever you want; until
youre comfortable with the material in your chosen field, its best to stick to known sources like
Wikipedia and sites endorsed by your library or department, if you use the Internet at all.

Remember, though, that until a few years ago, most of us managed to do research with no
Internet at all! With typewriters! Walking uphill! In the snow! Barefoot!